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THE FIRST REPUBLIC 



IN 



AMERICA 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THIS NATION, WRITTEN 

FROM THE RECORDS THEN (1624) CONCEALED BY 

THE COUNCIL, RATHER THAN FROM THE 

HISTORIES THEN LICENSED 

BY THE CROWN 



BY 



ALEXANDER BROWN, D.C.L. 

AUTHOB OF " THE GENESIS OP THE UNITED STATES " 
AND " THE CABELLS AND THEIR KIN " 




;i^u^v\ct Of ^^'-s 

. ?i.FR4-1898 

X^/sfer of OoVJ^ 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
/ ' HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
^\)t Eit)er0iue l^tt&si, CambriDge 



MDCCCXCVni 



ISIS 



COPYRIGHT, 1898, BT ALEXANDER BROWN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






J. trycsfb 

/7 







' /////a/Aj 



"y 






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■ for 

.t it 

be, 

PREFACE ^'^- 

The scene of the happy republic which Sir Thomas* 
More describes in his " Utopia " is laid in an island said 
to have been recently discovered in America. The learned 
Budseus and others accepted More's description as a genu- 
ine history, but it was only a dream. The Utopia which Sir 
Edwin Sandys and other advanced statesmen designed was 
a reality, but it has had no genuine history. 

It has been said that " the history of every nation 
begins with myth. . . . When the age of reflection arrives 
and the nation begins to speculate on its origin, it has no 
more recollection of what happened in its infancy than a 
man has of what happened to him in his cradle, and in 
the absence of records has been disposed to accept for 
itself a mythical foundation and founder." When our age" 
of reflection arrived " Smith's history was almost the only 
source from which we derived any knowledge of the in- 
fancy of our State;" and it came to be regarded as the 
standard authority on our foundation and its author as our 
founder. 

It was my original intention to consider fully in the text 
of this work each one of the numerous questions involved 
in " the John Smith controversy," but so much depends 
upon the point from which we look that I became convinced 
that so long as any one looked from the John Smith stand- 
point he would retain the John Smith views regardless of 
other evidences, and that if he should conclude to take 
the right view he would then see correctly without any 
aid from others. Therefore I decided to avoid the need- 
less controversies in the text and to devote it especially to 
an account of the origin of this nation from the point of 



^ 

^H^^ 



•^ 



PREFACE 

The scene of the happy republic which Sir Thomas 
More describes in his " Utopia " is laid in an island said 
to have been recently discovered in America. The learned 
Budseus and others accepted More's description as a genu- 
ine history, but it was only a dream. The Utopia which Sir 
Edwin Sandys and other advanced statesmen designed was 
a reality, but it has had no genuine history. 

It has been said that " the history of every nation 
begins with myth. . . . When the age of reflection arrives 
and the nation begins to speculate on its origin, it has no 
more recollection of what happened in its infancy than a 
man has of what happened to him in his cradle, and in 
the absence of records has been disposed to accept for 
itself a mythical foundation and founder." When our ageT 
of reflection arrived " Smith's history was almost the only 
source from which we derived any knowledge of the in- 
fancy of our State;" and it came to be regarded as the 
standard authority on our foundation and its author as our 
founder. 

It was my original intention to consider fully in the text 
of this work each one of the numerous questions involved 
in " the John Smith controversy," but so much depends 
upon the point from which we look that I became convinced 
that so long as any one looked from the John Smith stand- 
point he would retain the John Smith views regardless of 
other evidences, and that if he should conclude to take 
the right view he would then see correctly without any 
aid from others. Therefore I decided to avoid the need- 
less controversies in the text and to devote it especially to 
an account of the origin of this nation from the point of 



PREFACE 

' (the authentic records, etc.) of those on whom the 
crprise was dependent, which I believe to be the right 
!W for the historian to take ; because it is the point from 
lich the history of their enterprise can be clearly seen, 
dly appreciated, and fairly presented. Their acts and the 
lotives which inspired them cannot really be seen at all 
through the thick veil thrown over them by their oppo- 
nents for the special purpose of obscuring them. But my 
reasons for opposing the John Smith views have been so 
frequently misunderstood as to make some personal explana- 
tion on my part necessary, and therefore I shall give them 
here, in the preface, so fully that no one need misunder- 
stand my motive in this matter hereafter. 

Although my tasks in life have not always been along 
literary lines, I have been a student of history ever since I 
was a child, and Captain John Smith was the hero of my 
childhood ; but after reaching manhood, as I continued my 
studies, I was obliged to abandon one idea after another 
which I had derived from Smith's history, until I was finally 
obliged to relinquish my faith in him, and I then became 
convinced that there was certainly something wrong with 
our earhest history. 

The hearing of my right ear having been destroyed by 
the concussion from the explosion of General B. F. But- 
ler's powder-boat in December, 1864, near Fort Fisher, 
N. C, where I was a soldier in the Confederate service, and 
my left ear having been injured by the same shock, I finally 
became so deaf as to be cut off from my former business 
pursuits, and I then determined to try to locate this his- 
toric wrong, and to right it if I could. With this object 
I searched for evidence wheresoever there seemed a prospect 
of finding any. I have collected a great deal, and it is 
really not me but this evidence which is opposing the Smith 
views. 

I believe that the maxim, " under no circumstances are 
we justified in defending an injurious story which we do 



PREFACE 



not know to be true" is an especially good maxim in 
matters of history, where truth and justice are necessary for 
historic uses. Smith's story is beneficial to himself, but it 
is injurious to others; and, however true parts, of it may be, 
it conveys an untrue and trivial idea of the great move- 
ment of which it pretends to be a history. As I am a Vir- 
o-inian, I am naturally anxious to take our earliest history 
out of the narrow, inaccurate ruts into which it was put by 
the " historian," and to place it on the broad foundation 
where it rightly belongs. As I am a citizen of this re- 
public, I wish to show the fallacy of the claims and pre- 
tensions of Captain John Smith, because they are incorrect, 
unjust, and ungenerous ; and to give the correct view of 
our foundation, because it is honorable to our founders and 
to us. But in this matter I am not " moved by personal 
animosity towards Smith," and I am not " working under 
influences which are unfriendly to Virginia." I bear Cap- 
tain Smith no maHce. I regret exceedingly that any one 
who had been an official in Virginia should afterwards 
have been guilty of imposing a story as " history " which 
has made it necessary to expose the false ideas conveyed 
thereby. That this necessity exists, and that the issues 
involve the true basis of our foundation, is certain. 

I. The historic issue is between John Smith, the 
author, in England, and the managers of the movement 
on whom the enterprise was dependent in England and in 
Virginia. 

II. The personal issue is between John Smith, the 
actor, in Virginia, and the other councilors during his 
time here and the committees of the company in England 
for the rewarding of men on their merits, whose business 
it was to decide such matters at that time. 

III. The question is. Does Captain John Smith's his- 
tory convey a correct idea of this movement ? That is to 
say. Was the colony founded by Smith under the form of 
government designed by King James I., and did everything 
go to ruin " after the alteration," under the popular char- 



vi PREFACE 

ters, as stated in Smith's history ? Or was Smith a vain 
adventurer, and the king's form of government an incentive 
to faction, and was the colony founded by the managers 
under the popular charters, and established on the broad 
principles designed by Sir Edwin Sandys (whom James I. 
regarded as his greatest enemy), as appears from the au- 
thentic records ? 

We are a great nation. We ought to have a fair idea 
of our first foundation, and the whole fabric of our earHest 
history is involved in these questions between those who 
wrote, or liconsed, the history as then published, and those 
who really made the history as then performed. These 
important historic questions can only be properly consid- 
ered on their own merits in the view of the influences then 
obtaining, unobscured by resorting to special, personal, or 
sectional appeals to present influences ; for the case is not 
a matter for present political or religious sway ; it is beyond 
the authority of any one now living North or South. The 
issue is between the records of the Virginia Company, then 
concealed by the Privy Council, and the history of John 
Smith, then licensed by the crown. It must be tested by 
the results which have foUowed the acceptation of the con- 
temporary history, and decided (as all historic questions 
must be), after a full and fair consideration of the evi- 
dences for both sides, by the impartial judge on the bench, 
not by the advocate pleading for the prisoner at the bar. 

I. In considering the historic issue, we must note, in 
the first place, the fact that, whatever " the defailements " 
of the managers were, they finally succeeded, and no one 
can know what would have been the result if the enter- 
prise had really depended on Smith (or other critics), and 
if it had been carried on under their views and manage- 
ment. Therefore this issue is virtually a matter of Opinion 
vs. Fact, and history has to deal with the actual facts and 
not with opinions, whether reasonable or unreasonable. In 
the next place, as the prime object of history is to state 
facts, to be impartial, the prime necessity for an historian 



PREFACE vii 

to be personally disinterested in his story does not admit 
of any doubt. The acceptation of Smith's history, as a 
standard historical authority, would not only be a reflec- 
tion on our national foundation, but also on the prime 
foundation of history itself. If such works should be so 
accepted, history would not only be worthless as an author- 
ity but it would be positively harmful, for unworthy men 
would be apt to occupy the places of honor belonging to 
the deserving. Such works have been so often accepted 
as to cause many to regard all history as a lie. Hence we 
should not be justified in thus accepting this story, even 
if there were no counter-evidences at all; but there are 
counter-evidences which prove not only that it is partisan, 
but that the supports or propositions on which Smith 
rests his claims and criticisms are erroneous or misleading. 
The chmate was not healthy ; the Indians were not tracta- 
ble ; the commodities found during 1607-1609 were not 
satisfactory ; tobacco was not the bane, but really the pre- 
server and support of the colony; and the charters were 
not changed to the detriment, but for the betterment of 
the colony. In brief, the real cause of " the defailements " 
was not in the managing of the business as stated by 
Smith, and the colony was not brought to a good state of 
forwardness under the king's form of government by Smith. 
It is true that he did not ask for the alteration of the 
charter ; that the new charter of 1609 was granted without 
his consent, and that he afterwards used these facts to 
serve him a good turn in England ; but all things did not 
go to ruin owing to the changes in the charters, form of 
government, etc., and so continue until the enterprise was 
resumed by the crovvn, as asserted in Smith's publications. 
It is not only that the account is partisan and the supports 
defective, but the story itself, taken as a whole, is erroneous 
or misleading. His account of the state to which the colony 
had attained under the crown (1607-1609) is exaggerated 
and inaccurate, the errors being chiefly of commission; 
and he conveys a meagre, incorrect, unjust, and ungener- 



viii PREFACE 

ous idea of the enterprise under the company (1609-1624), 
omitting, traducing, or obscuring, insomuch that he con- 
ceals the facts, and really conveys no idea of the most 
worthy acts and the very broadminded motives which in- 
spired the managers in England and in Virginia under the 
popular charters. Finally, if he had been qualified to write 
and had really written an accurate account — such a his- 
tory as we now need to have — of this popular movement 
he would not have been permitted to publish it at that 
time. The fact that he " linked his name romantically with 
that of a woman " has fascinated many ; but what gave 
his story its greatest strength was the fact that he linked 
his fame historically with that of the "Kings royall 
Maiestie." The royal question became, during 1622-1624, 
the controlling issue to which other questions were subordi- 
nate and subservient. It furnished the real support on 
which Captain Smith's claims rested, and I believe it to 
be of greater historic importance than any other issue in- 
volved in " the John Smith controversy." 

During the contention between the crown and the Com- 
mons, King James I., under the guidance of his Privy 
Council and the royal party, and, it was said, under the 
influence of Gondomar, the Spanish minister, became con- 
vinced that the Virginia courts were " a seminary of sedi- 
tion," and determined to annul the popular rights of the 
Virginia Company and to resume the government of the 
colony himself. In the spring of 1623 he appointed a 
royal commission to look into the affairs of this company 
and colony, and agreeably to the king's wishes they made 
a report (to justify him in doing what he had made up his 
mind to do) to the purport that " much better effect had 
been produced under the King's charter and Instructions 
of 1606, than had been by the alteration thereof in 1609, 
into so popular a course," etc. Virginia was the first of 
the free colonies of England ; but it was founded in the 
days when many believed in the divine right of kings, and 
when "no English history es " were to be printed without 



PREFACE ix 

the sanction of the Privy Council ; and the accounts pub- 
lished under the royal license (in conformity with the royal 
wish) represent that the colony had been brought to a 
good state of forwardness under the royal charter and the 
king's form of government (" without one ray of popular 
rights"), and that all went to wrack after the alteration 
in the government, etc. On the other side, the authentic 
manuscript records, as well as the evidence (still preserved) 
which was submitted to the royal commissioners, really 
prove that the colony did not prosper under the crown ; 
but that it was finally established under the popular char- 
ters, which kindled the rays of popular rights that are 
now shining for us. 

II. My reasons for giving due consideration to the 
view of the other councilors in Virginia and of the commit- 
tees in England, in the personal issue, are as follows : In 
the first place, I believe that they were as capable of judg- 
ing Smith as he was of judging them. Then as his view 
in this issue is really dependent on his history, it has no 
more virtue than his view in the historic issue ; therefore I 
oppose it for the same, as well as for other reasons, namely : 
The historian has virtually absorbed his history, devoting it 
to his own acts and opinions ; and to the exclusion of the 
acts of others, he is really " the only man " in his story. 
Consequently those who take his view, seeing only one 
man, must lose sight of, and fail to have due consideration 
for, the rest ; and as a result of the acceptance of his views 
we have been taught to believe not only that " the Colony 
of Virginia was founded by Captain John Smith," but 
also that he was " the father of New England," and " the 
prime actor in settling the first English colonies in Amer- 
ica ; " that " what Sir Francis Drake was in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, that was Captain John Smith in the reign 
of her successor ; " that ii^ was " the only man in Vir- 
ginia." " the rest of the Council there being notoriously 
incompetent ; " that he was " the only one in England 
who had a thoroughly practical understanding of the true 



X PREFACE 

method for settling Virginia," " the managers in England 
not understanding the business at all," etc. There is no 
stronger illustration of the maxim, " I care not who fights 
the battles so I write the dispatches." All of these opin- 
ions, laudatory of Smith and condemnatory of his peers, are 
fully sustained by Smith's publications (dispatches). But 
he was largely a dispatch writer, "a paper tiger." As 
a matter of fact, Captain John Smith did not contribute 
enough in money to entitle him to full rights as an adven- 
turer. He did not remain in Virginia long enough to 
acquire full rights as a planter, and his services were not 
deemed sufficient by the committees of the company to 
justify them in rewarding him on his merits. He did not 
bring the colonists to Virginia. He landed there himself 
as a prisoner; was a prisoner at a time when he asserts 
that he was saving the colony from abandonment, etc. ; was 
sent back to England as a prisoner " to answer some mis- 
demeanors," and was not only not in the active service of 
the Virginia Company under which the colony was finally 
established, but was opposed to the popular charters under 
which the enterprise was being managed by the greatest 
business men and most advanced statesmen then in Eng- 
land. He not only was not " the founder of the Com- 
monwealth of Virginia," but was opposed to the basis on 
which it was founded. 

I do not doubt that Smith was a brave man, but he was 
not the only one in Virginia. I believe that every man 
who had the courage to cross the Atlantic in the frail barks 
of those days was necessarily a brave man. Although the 
evidence is so " mixed "as to render it impossible to say 
exactly what his deserts were, I believe that he was deserv- 
ing of some praise for some things which he did in Vir- 
ginia ; but he was not " the only man in Virginia," and he 
was not more worthy than those who remained in Virginia 
devoting their lives to the enterprise. It is evident that 
Percy, West, Martin, Archer, Ratcliffe, and others who 
were in Virginia with him, whose opinions are certainly 



PREFACE xi 

entitled to our respect, thought that he did more harm 
than good as an actor in Virginia ; but whatever his ser- 
vices — whether he went or was sent from Virginia — the 
important fact remains that he never returned there, and 
that if every one else had done exactly as he did, there 
would have remained no colonists in Virginia, but moun- 
tains of books in England conveying incorrect ideas, and 
filled with a mass of vanity, " excellent criticism " and 
" good advice," amounting really to nothing. 

He was not a hero nor a saint ; he was not the founder 
of Virginia, nor the father of New England. Inspired by 
his controlling trait, vanity, he provided for his present and 
future fame by catering to the ideas of the king ; by fur- 
nishing^ his own euloof'ies in the various tracts and books 
published by himself, and in the notes, etc., supplied by 
him to others ; and by leaving (in his will) ^£20 (more than 
twice as much as his contribution — <£9 — to Virginia), to 
be disbursed in his own funeral expenses. He would 
really have been more deserving of our respect if he had 
been guiltless of doing some of these things, yet he has 
been regarded as "the only man in Virginia" because he 
was the only man who did these things. " Vanity of 
vanities all is vanity." Very many more modest and more 
worthy men He unhonored and unknown beneath the sacred 
soil of the Old Dominion. Before 1631, when Smith was 
buried in St. Sepulchre's Church in London, more than 
three thousand English had died in the colony of Virginia, 
among them being many as honorable people as any in our 
annals. No stone marks the grave and no epitaph pre- 
serves the memory of a single one of them (male or female), 
and some of them are not even fairly treated in our first 
history. Yet there is really more reason for honormg them 
than there would have been if they had devoted themselves 
to publishing volumes in their own praise, or in criticism 
of others. It is useless to attempt to obscure the fact. 
Our first history, founded on the vanity of King James and 
of Captain John Smith, is a shame, and we cannot mend 



xii PREFACE . y 

the matter by canonizing its author, or by defending its 
errors. We must correct its wrongs and render justice to 
our real founders. Even the final resting-places of Captain 
Gabriel Archer, who first proposed to have a parliament in 
Virginia, and afterwards protested against the royal form 
of government for Virginia ; of the members of the first 
Council who gave their lives in and to Virginia; of the 
first Protestant ministers who gave their lives to the cause 
of Christ in the colony ; of Sir George Yeardley, who in- 
augurated the popular form of government in the present 
United States, and of the members of the first House of 
Burgesses in America, are not known. And this is practi- 
cally a picture of the personal issue in our earliest history. 
" We have Hstened to the song of the siren," and as a 
result the historic fate of the real founders of the nation 
is a national disgrace. Our histories have conferred the 
honors on " the enemies " of our founders : " the spotless 
man " who attacked their characters and opposed their 
patriotic motives, and " the noble King " of the Powhatan 
Indians who attacked their persons. This is not only true 
of the men, but of the women also. Although Pocahontas 
was not an enemy, I believe there were many Enghsh 
women in the colony deserving of as much praise as has 
been lavished on the Indian princess, and notwithstanding 
their historic fate, I am as certain that there were minister- 
ing angels and heroines among the Anglo-Saxon women 
who aided in founding this republic, as I am that there 
was sickness, famine, war, and death in the colony. The 
fate of the birthplace of the nation illustrates the effect 
of " the song" on the historic issue. 

The personal issue is not so important as the historic 
issue ; but look on this picture and on that, and it will 
be seen that we have " sold our birthright for a mess of 
pottage." 

III. An analysis of the work will show that Captain 
John Smith, in his history, has not given a correct idea 
(history) of this movement and of these men. We have 



PREFACE xiii 

not the original documents from which it is said that his 
account of the colony under the crown (1607-1609) was 
compiled, and we do not know what they really contained 
(although circumstances lead us to believe them to have 
been as favorable to royal ideas as possible) ; but as pub- 
lished, the narrative goeth where Smith goes, and lieth where 
Smith lies ; it tells little of what was going on even at 
Jamestown, unless Smith was there ; it makes the condition 
of the colony under the royal form of government to appear 
more favorable than it was ; but it is devoted to selfish per- 
sonal matters rather than to history. We have, however, 
most of the originals from which he compiled for 1610— 
1623, and these prove his manner of compiling to have 
been frequently misleading and unreliable. 

Captain John Smith may not have been as much of 
an impostor as George Psalmanazar ; he was not so well 
indorsed ; but if he was guilty of an imposture he was an 
impostor, and in many respects his history is manifestly an 
imposition ; and as he is the only one who can really be 
taken hold of as the responsible authority for that work, 
he is to that extent personally responsible for its faults. 
Whether as compiler, editor, or author, its faults are to 
that extent his faults. And the motive of this history is 
self -condemnatory ; for it is certainly more disposed to eulo- 
gise or defend the author and to blame or defame others 
than to give fair ideas. It is not really necessary to prove 
the falsity of any particular statement. A book without a 
single untrue statement may, by omitting facts or by giving 
them in a misleading way, convey just as false an idea as 
if every assertion were inaccurate. And there are many 
true statements in Smith's story ; many worthy expressions, 
as there are in other books of the same character whose 
authors were clever enough to make the vehicle in which 
they were carrying their own goods as strong, as plausible, 
as worthy of belief, as they could ; but it contains many 
inaccurate statements, and so far from conveying the true 
historic idea of our foundation and of our founders it really 



xiv PREFACE 

obscures the truth so shrewdly as frequently to make the 
real history very difficult of apprehension. The historian 
has constantly to leave the regular flow of the narrative for 
the purpose of removing some obstruction from the chan- 
nel ; to quote at length from numerous old documents 
which sometimes make dull reading ; to go into disagree- 
able controversies or into tiresome explanation, in order to 
right the wrongs which have been done by Smith's history. 

It is now certain that Smith gave a very ungenerous and 
incorrect idea of this great movement, yet it will be very 
hard to correct entirely the historic wrongs which have 
been caused by the acceptation of his story in the past, 
because of the human disposition to uphold past opinions at 
all hazards. That is to say, it is only necessary to go into 
the controversy because the " history " was a contemporary 
publication which came to be almost the only available 
account of the infancy of our State, and which we have 
been taught to regard as a standard authority from genera- 
tion to generation. Yet the very fact that it was a contem- 
porary publication is prima facie evidence that it was not 
a genuine history of this enterprise. 

Even when there is no censorship over the press contem- 
porary publications are apt to have some other motive than 
the making pubUc of the unvarnished facts fully and fairly 
on all points. It is not in the nature of man to write con- 
temporary history. " Time, the nurse and breeder of all 
good," has to smooth out partisan influences of all sorts 
before history can be written. And although there is, in 
Virginia especially, a very strong conservatism in dealing 
with matters of history and tradition, there is no reason 
why Smith's history, like all such contemporary pubHca- 
tions, should not yield to the truth brought to hght by 
time. The tree must be judged by its fruit, and it is now 
manifest that owing to a reliance on Smith's history, few 
7nen in any age have been more overrated than Captain 
John Smith ; no event in modern times more ungener- 
ously considered than the founding of this nation, and 



PREFACE XV 

no men more unjustly treated in history than those who 
really accomplished that task. 

Of course a great deal depends on the standpoint from 
which the subject is viewed. To some those who protested 
against the king's form of government in 1608-1609 were 
patriots ; to others they were rebels. " Hinc ilLne lachrymae." 
The London Company of 1609-1624, to which Smith's 
history is especially unjust, had been a cradle of civil and 
religious liberty ; in it were fostered the ideas which were 
the germ of the commonwealth of England and the genesis 
of the United States. But when Smith's history was pub- 
lished in 1624, many regarded the company as a " seminary 
of sedition." The royal officials in England, and even in 
Virginia, it seems, soon began to obliterate the evidence of 
the truth as to our earliest history so far as they could. 
Even the copies of the portions of the company's records 
which were first made use of by Stith in 1746 had to be 
preserved by stealth.^ It is believed that the original rec- 
ords of the acts, plans, and purposes of the company were 
all destroyed in 1624, or soon after. However this may be, 
it is certain that they were not used by an}^ historian, and 
it is equally certain that the publication of a genuine his- 
tory of this patriotic movement would not have been per- 
mitted by the Privy Council, because it was even then busy 
burying in every way the popular ideas and acts of " the 
late Virginia Company." The author of such a book would 
have been held guilty of leze majesty, and the book would 
have been burned by the order of '" the High Commission." 

The history of the origin of this nation must now be writ- 
ten from the auth3ntic records of the company which were 
then suppressed by the Council, rather than from the histo- 
ries of writers then licensed by the crown. It is not possi- 
ble to write a correct account of this grand movement, or to 
render justice to those who carried it forward to final suc- 
cess in England and in Virginia, without impeaching Cap- 

^ They revealed to the public for Smith's story continued to obstruct 
the first time much real history ; but the vision. 



xvi PREFACE 

tain John Smith. Some historians have been disposed to 
accept the personal views when favorable to Smith, and 
to reject them when unfavorable to others; while other his- 
torians reject his favorable views of himself and accept his 
unfavorable criticisms. We cannot accept and reject evi- 
dence at will. To reject is to impeach, and each party thus 
impeaches his evidence as much as those who do not rely 
upon it either when favorable to himself or when unfavora- 
ble to others. Some historians, while apparently indorsing 
his history, have really devoted themselves to supplying his 
omissions, correcting his errors, and altering sundry ideas 
conveyed by him, — that is, to impeaching his history. 
The truth is that the events were in accordance with the 
universal harmony of things. Our origin as a nation is 
perfectly legitimate ; we are by birth republican or demo- 
cratic, and not monarchical ; and as we are no longer under 
the crown, there is no longer any reason why we should 
yield our national birthright to the royal prerogative, or 
sacrifice our founders to the vanity of Captain John Smith. 
The main question is not whether Smith was saved by Poca- 
hontas, but whether our earliest history can be saved from 
the incorrect and unjust ideas conveyed by Smith and for- 
merly accepted by our historians. In order to see the facts 
it is necessary to look from the correct standpoint, because 
the same evidence will convey different ideas when looked 
at from different points of view. The real issue in the so- 
called John Smith controversy is between Captain John 
Smith and the ideas conveyed by his publications on the 
one side, and the managers of this movement and the 
ideas which really inspired them on the other. The found- 
ing of this country was one of the most important and 
noblest enterprises in the annals of the world. No move- 
ment was ever conducted by men more competent, or in- 
spired by grander ideas ; and no men ever had greater 
difficulties to overcome. But, owing to circumstances then 
obtaining, no event ever had a more incorrect or a more 
trivial history, or a more incompetent and unfair historian. 



PREFACE xvii 

" A vainglorious fellow," as Percy called him, devoting 
himself especially to " sounding his trumpet as the hypo- 
crites do," he " appropriated to himself many deserts which 
he never performed, and stuffed his relations with many 
falsities and malicious detractions of others." The true 
idea of our foundation cannot be seen from the John Smith 
point of view, because he was opposed to it, and does not 
give it. The Kcensed historian had served under the crown 
only ; he had been removed from his of&cial position by 
the managers of the company ; he was not disposed to deal 
fairly with them, and he really obscures the popular ideas 
and acts of that company as fully to the satisfaction of the 
royal censors (who wished to obHterate them from the page 
of history) as if the story was published for that very pur- 
pose. The real history of the enterprise can be fairly seen 
only from the point of view (the authentic records) of those 
on whom it was dependent. From this standpoint it will 
be seen that this nation had its origin under the inspiration 
of the grandest progressive ideas, the spreading of the 
English race and religion, commerce, and commonwealth, 
and the planting of civil and religious hberty in the new 
world. And the fact that the numerous grave obstacles 
which had to be met were finally overcome must be con- 
clusive evidence to every unbiased mind that the movement 
was well managed by competent men under Divine Provi- 
dence ; for otherwise, as the reading of the following 
account in the text will show, it must have resulted ni 
failure. 

Much of the record is still missing. The narrative of 
events in England and in Virginia is still incomplete. This 
is especially the case with Virginia. We frequently do not 
know what was going on in the colony, — at Jamestown, 
at the meetings with Powhatan, or in the battles with Ope- 
chancanough. And much of the contemporary evidence, 
besides that already mentioned, both in manuscript and in 
print, as to material and immaterial matters, is of a more or 
less partisan, unreliable character ; but there is sufficient 



xviii PREFACE 

evidence of a reliable character to take most matters of real 
importance out of the controversial column and to establish 
them as historic facts. Those things which may still be 
subject to controversy have generally little other than a 
mere personal consequence. The broad outline of the 
movement already stands out above the fading clouds, dis- 
tinct and clear. The period which gave birth to this nation 
was one of the most remarkable transition periods in Eng- 
lish history, in which men of affairs were just as active in 
making the advance in their spheres as men of letters were 
in theirs ; and a brief review of this movement will show 
that it was the most important event of that period. 

In the beginning many engaged in the enterprise inspired 
with the hope of finding a ready way to the South Sea, 
mines of gold, or other " present profit ; " and it was for- 
tunate that such hopes obtained to support the movement 
in its infancy. It was also fortunate that as these hopes 
were dispelled self-seeking men generally " withdrew them- 
selves ; " because the diplomatic and other conditions which 
surrounded the enterprise from the first soon became such 
as to make it essential to final success that the enterprise 
should be under the guidance of broad-minded, reliable 
men of commanding influence, inspired by the earnest de- 
sire to promote the future good of their country and of 
their posterity regardless of themselves.^ 

The movement soon became one of the most important 
factors in the poHtics of that period, not only in England 
and America, but also in Spain, France, and the Nether- 
lands ; not only in the contest then going on between 
Protestantism and Romanism, but also in the contest then 
beginning between the crown and the Commons ; and the 
foreign, national, and diplomatic issues involved received 
the earnest attention of the prime ministers as well as of 
the most celebrated statesmen and diplomats of England. 

The popular charters and other legal instruments of the 
London Company for Virginia were drafted by Sir Edwin 

1 See The Genesis of the United States, vol. ii. pp. 775, 776. 



PREFACE xix 

Sandys (a statesman of " the greatest p.irts and knowledge 
in England"), assisted by other lawyers and politicians 
among the progressive thinkers of that transition period, 
who also designed a popular form of government for the 
colony, and these documents formed the original basis for 
civil and religious liberty in the new world. 

The colony was estabhshed under the business manage- 
ment of Sir Thomas Smythe and other leading men of 
affairs of that day, who were then spreading the power of 
the Anglo-Saxon to the uttermost parts of the known world. 
The necessary means for carrying on the enterprise were 
contributed by " a greater union of Nobles and Commons 
than ever concurred in the Kingdom to such an undertak- 
ing ; " the voyages were under the command of old sailors 
who had learned the Atlantic in the days of Elizabeth ; 
the colony was under the government of old soldiers trained 
up in the Netherlands; and the planters were largely of 
the restless, pushing material of which the pathfinders 
of the world have ever been made. 

It is true that parties were finally formed in the company 
and colony, but such parties are the natural offspring of a 
popular form of government, and this is a wise dispensa- 
tion ; for without the safeguard to the public weal which 
is afforded by one party (the " outs ") keeping constant 
watch over the other (the "ins"), a popular government 
would soon become the worst sort of monopoly. There- 
fore, even though party spirit may sometimes have run too 
strong then, as it sometimes does now, it should be viewed 
leniently. And it should also be remembered that many 
papers were compiled for party and not for historical pur- 
poses. 

The enterprise was a new venture, largely experimental, 
and had also to be carried forward in the face of great 
difficulties of almost every kind, with diplomacy, with dis- 
cretion, and at great expense; but all things were as well 
ordered as human foresight permitted at that time. The 
managers were not able to change the ocean currents and 



XX PREFACE 

the fevers of the tropics, nor the climate of Virginia. 
Man did not then command the steam and the Hghtning. 
Quinine was unknown. Many things could only be re- 
vealed, regulated, and overcome by time. All things were 
in the power of God alone, and " the hand of God " was 
frequently " heavy upon them." But they finally estab- 
lished the colony, and placed the destiny of our country in 
the hands of the Anglo-Saxon. Then they inaugurated 
civil and religious liberty in America. They instituted pop- 
ular government at Jamestown, and sent over the Pilgrims 
who landed at Plymouth. 

It was the influences originated by and under the popular 
charters of the Virginia Company of London which first 
shaped the destinies of the new nation in the new world 
which has become the greatest nation in the whole world. 
Whatever may be the opinions of any of us on subsequent 
issues, all of us should wish to see justice done the real 
founders of this nation, " whose greatness of mind enabled 
them to perceive, amidst the losses, difficulties, disappoint- 
ments, and expenses of a beginning colony, the great ad- 
vantages to be derived therefrom in the future by their 
country; and preferring the interest of posterity to their 
own, to pursue the undertaking regardless of all difficul- 
ties, in spite of the malignity and narrow wisdom of the 
world." ^ 

The divine command to honor those who produced us 
that our days may be long in the land is as applicable to a 
nation as it is to man. The most important period in an 
existence is that of its beginning; and it is most desirable 
for us to have the historic facts regarding our origin as a 
nation. 

Captain John Smith claimed that the American colonies 
were " pigs of his sow," and he devoted many years to 
presenting his side of the case in various ways, with much 
shrewdness, turning to his advantage sundry circumstances 
and occasions. His history was licensed by the crown ; it 

^ Edmund Burke. 



PREFACE xxi 

has been available from the first ; we have been taught to 
believe it to be the standard authority on the English col- 
onization of America, and those who may still wish to look 
from the John Smith standpoint will find many histories 
in every library to meet their views. But the company 
records concealed by the Privy Council have never been 
available to the pubhc. No one has ever published an 
account of this movement based on the authentic evidences 
of those on whom the enterprise was really dependent in 
England and in America. The object of this work is to 
supply this national historic deficiency ; to render justice 
to them ; to give the real ways by which they managed to 
carry the movement to final success ; the real difficulties 
which they had to overcome ; the real motives which in- 
spired them ; the real history of their enterprise ; so that 
those who wish to have a correct and fair idea of the first 
foundation and of the real founders of this republic may 
have at least one history to meet their views. 

It is a mistake to think, as some do, that " the matter is 
one of especial historic importance to Virginia only, and 
the responsibility for the historic conditions must be laid 
on Virginians alone." This broad historic question is not a 
sectional matter at all. The fact that Smith's history has 
been so long accepted as " the standard authority on the 
English colonization of America " is a national disgrace. 
Captain John Smith was not the founder of Virginia, nor 
the father of New England. The men for whom I ask 
justice " had farther designs than making a tobacco planta- 
tion " in Virginia. They secured a lot in the new world 
for a new nation ; settled colonies both in New England 
and in Virginia, and originated the first republic in America, 
under charters of 1609 and 1612, ^yhich made possible all 
that has come after them. Standing on the broad founda- 
tion shaped by them " we are now a great nation," and all 
citizens of the United States have the same interest in their 
popular charters which they have in our declaration of 
final independence of 1776, as based on them. It is as 



XXU PREFACE 

much a national duty to protect from authors under the 
crown the history of the first planting, under these charters, 
of the seed of this republic, as it is to defend from Tory 
writers the history of the final gathering in our Revolu- 
tion of the matured fruit of that seed. This duty falls 
alike on the North and on the South ; on those who wore 
the blue and on those who wore the gray ; on the daugh- 
ters as well as on the sons of our various patriotic, histor- 
ical and genealogical societies. And all patriotic citizens 
should take as much pride in being of " founders kin " as 
is taken in tracing from the Roll of Battle Abbey. 

I have now given many of the real reasons which have 
influenced me in this historic matter, and the text of this 
book will prove each reasoD to be a valid one. Of course, 
I cannot expect those who continue to look from the John 
Smith standpoint to be able to see my position sufficiently 
clearly to fully appreciate it ; but I trust that others will. 
I know very well that I have not written the account of 
our real founders as well as it should have been done ; but 
I have done my best, and I hope that the fate of my work 
is safe in the hands of the posterity for which they labored. 

In preparing to write this book I made a careful chro- 
nological and general index of all the evidences in the 
premises that I could find written between 1605 and 1657, 
with a few by contemporaries, but of later publication. 
The volume has been written from these indices, and every 
statement in it is based on these evidences, and not on the 
writings of any more modern authors. As to some state- 
ments I have only one authority ; as to others there are 
many. Sometimes the several references to the same item 
agree fairly well ; at other times they are contradictory. In 
such cases I have followed the evidences which I regarded 
as the most reliable, avoiding controversial evidences, for 
controversy is not history, and we cannot accept a mooted 
question as an historical fact ; rejecting ex parte evidences 
and unfriendly criticisms ; frequently confining myself to 
the words of the original documents ; always trying simply 



PREFACE XXm 

to state tlie facts and to let them speak for themselves. 
Evidences since found have made many things clearer to 
me than they were when I pubhshed " The Genesis " in 
1890. The account might have been made more interest- 
ing (and the book more popular, it may be) if written " like 
to a ship, that cutteth the cable, and putteth to Sea ; " but, 
Uke the ship, it is more valuable when restrained to its 
moorings. We read romance for pleasure, and we wish it 
to amuse us whether it is correct or not ; but we read his- 
tory for information, and it must give the facts even if 
they are dry. The more interesting an incorrect history, 
the more harmful it is. I always wish to give as much 
information as I can in as few words as possible ; but, in 
order to carry out my object, it is sometimes necessary to 
go into details, and to give much original matter which, 
save for its value in the premises, would not make inter- 
esting reading. I have tried to repeat no more of what I 
have already given in " The Genesis " than was necessary. 
I only attempt to give the leading remaining original ref- 
erences to matters pertaining to divinity, laws, and medi- 
cine. I do not attempt to discuss or to explain them fully, 
as the ministers, lawyei's, and doctors can do this better 
than I, and as they mil be more interested in clearing up 
their professional matters for themselves. 

In order to make the collection of original matter for 
1605-1616 as complete as possible, I have inserted in this 
volume sundry papers discovered since 1890. The docu- 
ments written during 1617-1627, and now available, are 
too numerous to be given completely ; but I have used 
them freely in compiling this account, and hope some day 
to be able to preserve the scattered evidences for that 
period, as I have already done for 1605-1616 in " The 
Genesis of the United States " and in this book. 

A document written at that time in London on March 
16, 1612 (present style), would have been dated by an 
Englishman, March 6, 1611 ; by a Spaniard, March 16, 
1612; by a Dutchman, March -^q, 16jh The different 



xxiv PREFACE 

dates given for the same day under the differing styles then 
obtaining have caused a vast confusion of dates in our his- 
tories. For this reason, and also because I am writing for 
people of the present time, I have determined to use the 
present style date throughout the book, save when other- 
wise noted. I have also modernized the old spelling when- 
ever deemed advisable, and have written out in full the old 
contractions of words, etc., in the original documents. 

If any of my fellow-citizens should be disposed to think 
that I have given too much labor and too many pages to 
this brief period, they must remember that it is always of 
the first importance in building anything to make sure 
of the foundation before proceeding further. 

My sincere thanks are due to Hon. A. R. Spofford, libra- 
rian of Congress, the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 
D. C, Mr. Wilberforce Eames, of the New York Public 
Library, Hon. J. P. Baxter, of Maine, Mr. Charles P. Keith, 
of Philadelphia, and Mr. W. W. Scott, of the Virginia 
State Library, for aiding me in various ways in procuring 
material for this work, and to those who by patronizing 
the book with their advance orders have become co-authors 
in its production. 

Alexander Brown. 

Norwood P. 0., Nelson County, 
VmGtNiA, April 12, 1897. 



CONTENTS 



UNDER THE CROWN. 1605-1609 

ENGIiANB VIKGINIA 



I. July, 1605-July, 1607 ... 1 

III. August, 1607-April, 1G08 . . 43 

V. May, 1608-January, 1609 . . 62 



II. Dec, 1606-Sept. 19, 1607 . , 
IV. Sept. 20, 1607-Sept. 20, 1608 
VI. Sept. 20, 1608-July, 1609 . , 



UNDER THE COMPANY. 1609-1625 
Part I. Smythe ADMiifisTRATiON, 1609-1619 

ENGLAND 

I. January-June, 1609 
III. June-December, 1609 . 

V. December, 1609-August, 1610 120 
VII. September, 1610-May, 1611 
IX. May, 1611-June 3, 1612 . 
XI. June 4, 1612- July, 1613 . 
XIII. July 30, 1613-Apra 7, 1614 
XV. April, 1614-April, 1615 . 
XVII. May, 1615-November, 1616 
XIX. Nov. 28, 1616-Nov. 26, 1617 
XXI. November, 1617-Oct., 1618 
XXTTT. October, 1618-May 8, 1619 

Part II. Sandys-Southampton Administrations. 1619-1625 

ENGLAND VIRGINIA 



I. May 8, 1619-July 8, 1620 . . 333 

III. July 8, 1620-May 12, 1621 . 382 

V. May 12, 1621-June 1, 1622 . 422 

VII. June 1, 1622-April, 1623 , . 476 

IX. April-November, 1623 . . 517 

XI. November, 1623-June, 1624 . 585 



21 
53 
68 







VIRGINIA 




73 


II. 


July-October, 1()09 . . 


. 86 


100 


IV. 


October, 1609-June, 1610 


. 108 


120 


VI. 


June, 1610-May, 1611 . 


. 126 


140 


VIII. 


May, 1611-May, 1612 . 


. 149 


159 


X. 


June, 1612-May, 1613 . 


. 171 


177 


XII. 


May, 1613-February, 1614 


. 189 


196 


XIV. 


February-December, 1614 


. 202 


214 


XVI. 


January, 1615-April, 1616 


. 224 


231 


XVIII. 


April, 1616-May, 1617 . 


. 238 


242 


XX. 


May, 1617- April, 1618 , 


. 253 


262 


XXII. 


April, 1618- April 1619 


. 277 


290 


XXIV. 


April-November, 1619 . 


. . 308 



II. Nov. 28, 1619-Nov. 28, 1620 . 370 

IV. Nov. 28, 1620-Nov. 28, 1621 . 407 

VI. Nov. 28, 1621-Nov. 28, 1622 . 453 

VIII. Nov. 28, 1622-August, 1623 . 499 

X. September, 1623-May, 1624 . 559 

XII. June, 1624-March, 1625 . . 605 



RESUMED BY THE CROWN. 1624-1627 

Conclusion — England and Virginia 

June, 1624-February, 1627 633 

RlfeUME 649 

INDEX 653 



THE FIRST REPUBLIC IN AMERICA 



UNDER THE CROWN 
I 

ENGLAND, JULY, 1605— JULY, 1607 
ROBERT CECIL, EARL OF SALISBURY, PRIME MINISTER 

The idea that the dangerous and increasing power of 
Spain and Rome in America should be checked had been 
growing in England ever since the arrival there in 1565 of 
the Huguenots who escaped massacre by the Spaniards in 
Florida. The spark kindled by the betrayal of Hawkins, 
Drake, and others at Vera Cruz in September, 1568, never" 
went out. " The wings of man's life are plumed with the 
feathers of death," but the great ideas of Gilbert, Ralegh, 
Walsingham, Sidney, and others did not die. Private and 
public enterprises for " annoyinge the Kinge of Spaine " in 
America continued to be sent out from time to time ; some- 
times " under pretense of letters patent to discover and 
inhabit " the country, and sometimes openly to destroy or 
to make " prizal of the shipping of Spain." From 1585 to 
1603 there was actual war, and the efforts — to colonize 
America — of Walsingham, Gilbert, Ralegh, Sidney, Car- 
leill, Grenville, Hakluyt, Smythe, Lane, White, and others 
were finally stopped by this war. After the conclusion of the 
treaty of peace (1604-1605) between England and Spain, 
" the then only enemy of our nation and religion," it was 
determined by many in England to take advantage of " this 
opportunity," " commended by the English politicians," 
for carrying out Sir Philip Sidney's scheme " to check the 



4 UNDER THE CROWN 

unadvised rashnes. Bicause the wayght of this our home 
state lyeth already so much upon you, that to press you 
unto more may be thought iraportunitie, or rather in us a 
want of judgment. But the propertie of virtue and true 
honour is to put no limits unto the doing of good, in which 
the farther that mortal men can procede, the nearer they 
aproach unto God. And you whom God hath extraordina- 
rily indued and made compleat in all abilities which may 
extend to the advancement of most high and honest causes, 
will not (we are perswaded) take any such motion to be 
impertinent to you, but well deserving to be patronised by 
one so honourable a personage as yourself : the same reach- 
ing and aspiring to the chiefest good that man can pro- 
pound. 

" But forasmuch as so great a business as for planting 
of Christianitie amongst heathens can never be duly effected 
by private meanes, in which course some of us have many 
yeares past ventred both lyfe and substance without fruite : 
we have devised another way without offence to publike or 
private, whereby the cause may be compleatly sett forward, 
supported, and seconded, untill it be grown to such perfec- 
tion that it may stand of itseK, and give large recompence 
to all co-assistants. Which meanes requireth the consent 
of Parliament, whereunto a motion is drawn by us, and a 
hrief discourse of inducements also, for satisfaction of son- 
dry objections which have been made heretofore — seeming 
fytt to leave as little scruple as may be in mens mynds and 
consciences, whose furtherance must, be requyred in the 
House — somme coppies whereof we intend to deliver 
amongst diverse our friends members of the same. 

" Nevertheles before we procede, we thought it our dutie 
fyrst to acquaynt your Lordship therewith, without whose 
grace and honorable advice we desyre not to do anything. 
For which consideration we liombly present your Honour 
with the fyrst view of our projects, which we hope after 
your accustomed manner you will voutsq.fe to accept. 

" Being in this and all services ever devoted unto you. 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605 -JULY, 1G07 5 

and so rest, attending your honours pleasure as we shall 

understand by this deliverer, 

" Your Ho" most bounden, 

" Tho\ Hayes, 
" Edward Hayes." 

Captain Edward Hayes had " ventred both lyfe and sub- 
stance " in Gilbert's voyage to our northern coast in 1583. 
Neither the " motion,'' nor " hrief discourse of induce- 
m,ents'' to Parliament are now on file with the letter ; but I 
am satisfied that the document headed " Reasons for rais- 
ing a fund," and given in " The Genesis of the United 
States," pp. 36-42, is a copy of one of these papers. 

The second session of the first Parliament of James I. 
began November -/g, 1605, — the day of the celebrated 
Gunpowder Plot treason. On November 19, Parliament 
was adjourned to January 31, 1606. On their reassem- 
bling a bill was at once passed making November ^\ (" Gun- 
powder Plot day ") " a day of thanksgiving forever," 
which bill remained in force over two hundred and fifty 
years. The session, which continued to June 6 (N. S.), was 
largely devoted to measures and acts in the interest of 
England, at that time in favor of the reformed religion and 
against the Church of Rome. It was during this period 
of excitement, and under the same influences, that the na- 
tional movement for securing a lot or portion in the New 
World for the English race and religion was taking defi- 
nite shape in England. And although it was not deemed 
best for the colonial charters and of&cial papers to be 
publicly confirmed by Parliament at this time, many of the 
ideas found in the parliamentary acts were embodied in the 
said charters, etc., for the plantations, and the movement 
was personally indorsed by many members of that body. 

Exactly when the movement to plant public colonies in 
America took definite shape I do not know, but among 
the most influential men in putting it on foot were Rob- 
ert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury ; Sir John Popham, lord chief 



6 UNDER THE CROWN 

justice ; Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton ; and Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges. The petition for the first charter was 
signed by Sir Thomas Gates (who had been selected as a 
land o£6.C(ir in the Drake-Sidney voyage to America, 1585- 
86), Sir George Somers, a member of Parliament (who 
had served under Ralegh, and who had commanded several 
victorious voyages to the West Indies in the time of war 
with Spain), Rev. Richard Hakluyt (who had previously 
taken such deep interest in the colonial enterprises of 
Walsingham, Sidney, and Ralegh), Captain Edward-Maria 
Wingfield (who had served in the Low Country war against 
Spain), Thomas Hanham, Ralegh Gilbert, WilHam Parker, 
and George Popham, all of whom had seen service as sea 
captains in American waters in the time of Elizabeth. 

The first draft for the proposed first Virginia charter, 
annexed to the petition for the same, was probably drawn 
by Sir John Popham. It met with the royal favor and the 
charter was granted by James I. The warrant to prepare 
it was issued by the secretary of state (Robert Cecil) ; it 
was prepared by the attorney-general (Sir Edward Coke) 
and the solicitor-general (Sir John Dodderidge) ; and on 
April 1^, 1606, it was passed under the great seal by the 
lord chancellor (Sir Thomas Egerton). 

It was a general charter claiming for the crown of Eng- 
land the whole of North America between 34° and 45° 
north latitude, commonly called Virginia. It professed as 
a leading preamble or motive " the furtherance of so noble 
a work " "as the planting of Christianity amongst hea- 
thens." Two companies — one for planting a colony in 
South Virginia, the other for planting a colony in North 
Virginia — were both incorporated by this one charter. The 
first colony was authorized to locate their plantation " in 
some fit and convenient place " between 34° and 41° north 
latitude, and when so settled the charter then granted them 
fifty miles north and fifty miles south of said settlement as 
well as one hundred miles to sea and one hundred miles 
within the land. And the second colony was authorized 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605— JULY, 1607 7 

to locate their plantation between 38° and 45° north lati- 
tude, and were granted like bounds of land on like terms, 
"provided, however, that the colonies should not plant 
within one hundred miles of each other." This clause has 
frequently been a cause of comment ; but as one colony 
was to extend fifty miles north of their seat, and the other 
fifty miles south of theirs, the proviso was necessary to 
prevent a possible conflict of bounds between the two colo- 
nies. About 2,000,000 square miles of land were claimed 
by the crown, of which only 20,000 square miles were 
granted (and upon conditions) to both colonies. The 
whole of this Virginia, including the said very limited 
grants to the two colonies, was placed under the manage- 
ment of one and the same Royal Council of Virginia ; " all 
of whom were appointed by the King ; and to be increased, 
altered or changed at the King's pleasure and this Council 
nominated the councellors of the colonies," who were to 
govern according to such laws, ordinances, and instructions 
as should be given by the king. The document was a 
royal charter containing " not one ray of popular rights," 
although it granted sundry privileges to the companies. 
They could search for mines ; coin money ; invite and carry 
over adventurers ; repel intruders. Duties payable by cer- 
tain persons for trading to the colonies were to the use of 
the colonies for twenty-one years, then to the king ; certain 
articles were free of duty for seven years ; inhabitants and 
their children to have privileges of British subjects ; pen- 
alty for carrying goods, etc., destined for the colonies to 
any other places ; robberies, etc., to be punished ; and finally 
lands granted by the colonial authorities, " to be holden of 
lis [the crown], our heirs, and successors, as of our manor 
of East-Greenwich in the county of Kent, in free and com- 
mon soccage only, and not in capite," and lands passed by 
these patents were assured by the patentees. 

The charter is a very important document; but as a 
charter for colonization it was mainly experimental, and as 
experience revealed its imperfections they were corrected 



8 UNDER THE CROWN 

by subsequent charters. It remained, however, the royal 
charter, the basis of England's claim to America between 
34° and 45° north latitude. 

Although not so stated in the charter, the secretary of 
state (Robert Cecil) was the patron of the southern colony, 
and the lord chief justice of England (Sir John Popham) 
was the patron of the northern colony. 

Purchas, while referring to this charter, says that " he 
also had copies of both the Articles and Instructions two 
dayes after dated [M April 1606], signed, and sealed, with 
the Privie Seale for the government of the plantation." I 
have found no copy of these original articles ; but at the 
request of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others they were 
jfinally canceled or revised, and reissued. 

Sir John Popham had at once interested the citizens of 
Plymouth in the plantation of a colony in the northern 
parts of America ; but on May 20, 1606, " Waltere Ma- 
thewe deputy mayor of Plymouth and his bretherin of the 
city council," wrote to Cecil, by Captain Thomas Love, pro- 
testing against certain conditions of the articles, and on 
the same day Sir Ferdinando Gorges wi'ote to the same per- 
son ^ to the same purport, begging Cecil to use his favor 
and wisdom in their behalf. The special objection seems 
to have been with those originally chosen to be of his 
Majesty's Council. " And indeed," writes Gorges, ^'•' when 
yt was once bruted that soe many Cittizens and Tradesmen 
weare made councillors to his highnes for the disposing of 
theire af aires that on theire private chardg undertooke the 
enterprize, all the gentlemen that before weare willing to 
be lardge adventurers presentlie withdrew themselves and 
by noe meanes will have to doe therein." It is to be in- 
ferred that the citizens of Plymouth found the relief asked 
for through the honorable favor of Cecil, as Sir John Pop- 
ham, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, with divers other worshipful 

* For the Gorges documents, see 5?V A. M, Boston. The Prince Society 
Ferdinando Gorges and Tiis Province of Publication, 1890. 
Maine, By James Phinney Baxter, 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605 — JULY, 1607 9 

knights, gentlemen and merchants of the west country, on 
August 22, 1606, sent forth from Plymouth M. Henry 
Challons in the Richard, of Plymouth, on the voyage in- 
tended for the North Plantation of Virginia. In this ship, 
of about fifty-five tons burden, there went twenty-nine Eng- 
lishmen and two of the five savages (Manedo and Assa- 
comoit) which were brought into England by Weymouth 
the year before out of the north parts of Virginia. 

And two months after " it pleased the Noble Good Chiefe 
Justice, Sir John Popham, Knight, to send out another 
shippe, wherein Captayne Thomas Hanham went com- 
mander, and Martin Prinne [Pring] of Bristow, master, 
with all necessary supplies, for the seconding of Captayne 
Challons and his people." 

While these things were being done in the west of Eng- 
land, sundry citizens of London were preparing a well 
appointed expedition for the southern colony of Virginia. 

On November 30, 1606, James I. issued his Articles, 
Instructions, and Orders for the government of the two 
several colonies. This is a remarkable document, written 
by King James, who always had an high idea of his own 
acts, and it came to pass that this act had an important 
influence on our early history, as first published. In this 
instrument he appoints his first King's Council of Vir- 
ginia (34° to 45° north latitude), namely, Sir William 
Wade, lieutenant of the Tower of London (" son of Armi- 
gell Wade, the British Columbus ; " a statesman, diplomat, 
and M. P.), Sir Thomas Smythe (one of those to whom 
Ralegh assigned his interest in Virginia in March, 1589 ; 
M. P., etc.), Sir Walter Cope (statesman and M. P.), Sir 
George Moore (statesman and M. P.), Sir Francis Pop- 
ham (son of Sir John Popham, M. P., etc.). Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges (governor of the forts of Plymouth, etc.), Sir John 
Trevor (M. P., etc.). Sir Henry Montague (recorder of the 
city of London, M. P., etc.), Sir Wm. Romney (governor 
of the East India Company), John Dodderidge, Esq. (so- 
licitor-general, M. P., etc.), Thomas Warr, Esq. (" coun- 



10 UNDER THE CROWN 

ciler-att-law," a grandson of Sir John Popliam), John 
Eldred of London (merchant, a dh-ector of the East India 
Company), Thomas James of Bristol (merchant, M. P., 
etc.), and James Bagge of Plymouth (merchant, M. P., 
etc.). I take it for granted that these men are not the 
" Tradesmen " alluded to by Gorges in his letter to Cecil 
(May 2§, 1606), as " well knowen to have noe manner of 
understanding what belongeth thereunto [the management 
of the enterprise] more than ordinarie." This Council had 
power and authority (but it was " at the royal pleasure, in 
the royal name and under the royal power and authority in 
all things") over the country of Virginia and the colonies. 
They appointed the several councils for the several colonies 
who were under their direction, but as laid down in the 
peculiar form of government designed for the colonies by 
King: James in the said remarkable document : — 

^' A Copy of the Oath for the King's Counsel of Virginia. 

" You shall sweare to be a true and faithfuU servant 
unto the King's majesty as one of his counsel for Virginia. 
You shall in all things to be moved, treated and debated in 
that counsel concerning Virginia or any the territories of 
America between the Degrees of 34 and 45 from the Equi- 
noctial line northward, or the trades thereof, faithfully and 
truely Declare your mind and opinion according to your 
heart and conscience. And of all matters of great impor- 
tance or difficulty before you resolve thereupon you shall 
make his Ma*'®^ Privy Counsel acquainted therewith and fol- 
low their Direction therein. And shall keep secret all mat- 
ters committed and revealed to you concerning the same, 
and that shall be treated secretly in that [the Privy] Coun- 
sel or this Counsel of Virginia [until such time as by the 
consent of them] or the more part of them pubHcation shall 
be made thereof. 

" You shall to the uttermost bear faith and alleagiance to 
the Kings ma*'® his heirs and lawfull successors, and shall 
assist and defend all jurisdictions preheminences and au- 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605 — JULY, 1607 11 

tliorities granted unto his Ma*'® and annext unto the crown, 
be it by Act of Parliament or otherwise, against all forrain 
Princes, persons. Prelates or Potentates whatsoever, and 
generally in all things you shall do as a faithfull and true 
servant and subject ought to Do. So help you God and 
the holy contents of this Book." 

On December ^^, 1606, when the expedition to southern 
Virginia was nearly ready to sail, his Majesty's Council for 
Virginia issued their orders and directions for the passage 
by sea, and after their arrival and landing there, and their 
" Instructions given by way of Advice " to the colonists. 

But few details relative to the preparations for this voy- 
age have been preserved. Wingfield (in June, 1608), in 
defending himself from the charge that " he combyned 
with the Spanniards to the distruction of the CoUony ; that 
he was an Atheist, because he carryed not a Bible with 
him," replies, " I confesse I have alwayes admyred any 
noble vertue and prowesse, as well in the Spanniards, as in 
other nations ; but naturally I have alwayes distrusted and 
disliked their neighborhoode. I sorted many bookes in 
my house, to be sent up to me at my goeing to Virginia ; 
amongst them a Bible. They were sent me up in a trunk 
to London, with divers fruite, conserves and preserves, 
which I did sett in M^ Crofts his house in Ratcliff. In 
my being at Virginia, I did understand my trunk was thear 
broken up, much lost, my sweetmeates eaten at his table, 
some of my bookes, w^hich I missed, to be scene in his 
hands ; and whether amongst them my Bible was so 
ymbeasiled ; or whether mislayed by my servants, and not 
sent me, I knowe not as yet." 

The personal part of this passage may be explained by 
the fact that Mr. Richard Crofts was one of the first 
planters, and Wingfield had had a squabble with him in 
Virginia over a copper kettle. It would be interesting to 
know what books were carried to Virginia in this first voy- 
age. 

In this same fine of defense, Wingfield also says : " For 



12 UNDER THE CKOWN 

my first worke (which was to make a right choice of a spir- 
itual! pastor), I appeale to the remembrance of my Lord of 
Caunterbury his Grace [Richard Bancroft], who gave me 
very gracious audience in my request. And the World 
Knoweth whome I tooke with me [Rev. Robert Hunt] ; 
truly, in my opinion, a man not any waie to be touched 
with the rebelHous humors of a papist Spirit, nor blemished 
with ye least suspition of a factius scismatick, whereof I 
had a speciall care." There was an effort made to prevent 
papists and separatists from going ; but the only religious 
oath required of the colonists under the first form of gov- 
ernment (November, 1606) was the new oath of allegiance 
passed at the second session of the first parliament of James 
I., which oath did not necessarily exclude English Catholics 
from the colony, as there was a difference of opinion among 
them as to the lawfulness of taking it, and some Catholics 
went to Virginia while under the first charter. 

Fuller, in his " Church History of Britain," says the 
Pope issued two briefs against this oath, " prohibiting all 
Catholics to take it, etc. Notwithstanding all which the 
oath was generally taken by Catholics without any scruple 
or regret." Continuing, he says : " In the Pens tilting at 
Pens " about its lawfulness, " King James undertook the 
Pope himself, the wearer of three against the wearer of a 
triple crown (an even match) effectually confuting his 
Briefs," etc. 

On Saturday, December ^, 1606, the first expedition 
sent out for " the First Colony in Virginia " sailed from 
London, under the sole charge and command for the voyage 
of Captain Christopher Newport, in three vessels, namely : 
" The good ship called the Sarah Constant (Captain New- 
port, Admiral), and the ship called the Goodspeed (Capt. 
Bartholomew Gosnold, vice-admiral), with a pinnace called 
the Discovery (Captain John Ratcliffe)." Statements differ 
as to the number of people in the expedition ; but the Ad- 
vice of the King's Council (which is the official statement) 
places the number of emigrants at " six score " (120). 
There were also about forty or fifty sailors. 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605— JULY, 1607 13 

It is probable that Drayton, who was a friend to Sir 
Thomas Smythe, wrote his " Ode to the Virginian Voy- 
age " at this time. 

It seems well to note here that in 1606 most of the citi- 
zens of London lived within the walls on the north side of 
the Thames. I find the population variously estimated at 
from " about 160,000 " to " more than 300,000." I believe 
the latter figure to be nearly correct. From 1603 to 
1611 the city suffered under a visitation of the plague. 
"From March to December 1603 there died 37,294, 
whereof of the Plague 30,561. From Thursday Dec. 29, 
1605 to Thursday, Jan'y 4*^ 1607 (five days after the sailing 
of Newport), there were buried in London 7,920, whereof 
of the plague 2,124." 

It was thought that the plague was caused by the large 
surplus population which had accumulated in England, and 
one of the objects of colonization was the distribution of 
this surplus to the advantage of the mother country. 

January 24, 1607, Zufiiga wrote to Philip III., telling 
him, as well as he had been able to find out, about the colo- 
nization plans of the English. 

From the first the movement had to meet opposition, dis- 
asters, and troubles of all sorts. In November, 1606, Cap- 
tain Challons, vessel, and crew were taken by the Spaniards 
in the West Indies ; among others. Master Daniel Tucker, 
the cape-merchant of the expedition, was taken to the river 
of Bordeaux, where he arrived January 12, 1607. After 
entering there sundry complaints against the Spaniards, he 
returned to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in England, who wrote 
at once to Cecil (February 14) about the affair, inclosing 
"The Relation of Daniell Tucker." The capture of " Cha- 
lens " became a matter of state and diplomatic consequence. 
There is a great deal in print and much still remaining in 
manuscript relative thereto, but it is only to my present 
purpose to give an outline of the controversy. 

Within a few days Chief Justice Popham received a let- 
ter from Nevill Davis (dated Seville, February 4, 1607) ; 



14 UNDER THE CROWN 

and Cecil a letter from Sir Charles Cornwallis (of February 
6), the English ambassador at the court of Spain, relative to 
the Challons (Challines, Chalonour, etc.) affair. This mat- 
ter, with others of a like character, was brought before 
Parliament. On March 8 (N. S.), Sir Thomas Lowe, one 
of the members for London, laid the grievances before the 
House of Commons. The petition addressed " to the King's 
most excellent Majesty, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, 
and the rest of this honourable Court," complained : first, 
" of the wrongs in fact," secondly, " of the wrongs in 
law," and thirdly, the petitioners desired the remedy by 
" letters of marque " to the value of their loss under the 
authority of the statute in that kind issued in the time of 
Henry V. 

Two days thereafter the petition was referred to a com- 
mittee who were to look into the matter and make their re- 
port thereon. In the Cecil papers there is a memorandum, 
" concerning the ship taken at sea going to Virginia," in 
the handwriting of Levinus Munck, one of Cecil's secreta- 
ries, in which the bearing of this case on the treaty of 
1605 is considered (see hereafter). 

On March 19, 1607, " James, by the grace of God, &c." 
issued an Ordinance and Constitution enlarging the number 
of the King's Council of Virginia, " and augmenting their 
authority, for the better directing and ordering of such 
things as shall concerne the two several Colonies." The 
additional councilors were : Sir Thomas Challoner, Sir 
Henry Nevil, Sir Fulke Grevil, Sir John Scott, Sir Robert 
Mansfield, Sir Oliver Cromwell, Sir Morrise Berkeley, Sir 
Edward Michelbourne, Sir Thomas Holcroft, Sir Thomas 
Smith (clerk of our Privy Council), Sir Robert Kelligrew, 
Sir Herbert Croft, Sir George Coppin, Sir Edwyn Sandys, 
Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Anthony Palmer, Sir Edward Hunger- 
ford, Sir John Mallet, Sir John Gilbert, Sir Thomas Freake, 
Sir Richard Hawkins, Sir Bartholomew Mitchell, Edward 
Seamour, Esq., Bernard Greenville, Esq., Edward Rogers, 
Esq., and Matthew Sutcliffe, Doctor of Divinity. Like those 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605— JULY, 1607 15 

first appointed, many of these were then members of Par- 
liament and had seen service in the late war with Spain. 

Late in March, Gorges received by the hands of Nicholas 
Himes (Hines or Hawes), master of the Richard, of Ply- 
mouth, who had made his escape from Spain, letters from 
Mr. Challons (Chalinge), to which he replied on the 23d. 

On March 8, the king of Spain wrote to Zuiiiga, and on 
the 14th Philip III. held a consultation with his council 
as to the steps which should be taken to prevent the Eng- 
lish from settling colonies in North America. The king's 
letter, and the report of his council, probably reached his 
ambassador in London late in March or early in April. 

About the same time Hanham and Pring returned to 
England from North Virginia. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 
writing many years after, says Pring " brought with him 
the most exact discovery of that coast that ever came to my 
hands since ; and indeed he was the best able to perform 
it of any I have met withal to this present ; which with his 
relation of the country, wrought such an impression in the 
lord chief justice and us all that were his associates, that, 
notwithstanding our first disaster [Challons'] we set up 
our resolution to follow it with effect." Their second ex- 
pedition for settling the second or northern colony was 
at once organized. On April 11, the following oath was 
administered : " You shall swear to be a true and faithfuU 
servant unto the King's majesty as one of the Counsel for 
the Second Colony to be planted by virtue of his Majesties 
Letters Patents in America, and therein faithfully and 
truely Declare your mind and opinion according to your 
heart and conscience and shall Keep secret all matters com- 
mitted and revealed to you concerning the same, or which 
shall be treated secretly in that counsel, until such time as 
by the consent of them or the more part of them, publica- 
tion shall be thereof made. And of all matters of great 
importance that may concern that Colony you shall, accord- 
ing to your Skill and Knowledge Deal circumspectly agree- 
able to his Majesties Letters patents and Directions in that 



16 UNDER THE CROWN 

behalf, and shall with your fellow counsellors make his 
Majesties Privy Counsel or his Counsel for Virginia ac- 
quainted therewith, and thereupon shall to your Power 
observe and Keep such further Directions as his Majesty, 
his Privy Counsel, or his Counsel for Virginia, shall give 
unto you therein. You shall also to your uttermost bear 
faith and alleagiaunce " [and so on, as in " the oath for the 
King's Counsel," p. 10.] " In witness we have hereunto 
subscribed our names and set the seal belonging to this 
second Counsel of Virginia, upon the said first day of April 
in the year of the Reign of our Soverain Lord James by 
the Grace of God King of England, France and Ireland, 
Defender of the Faith to the fifth, and of Scotland the 
fortieth." The signatures are not preserved in the copy 
(of the original) in the manuscript volume of Virginia Re- 
cords in the Law Library of Congress ; but the councilors 
were Captains George Popliam, Ralegh Gilbert, Edward 
> Harlie (Harlow, etc.),^ Robert Davis (Davies), Ellis Best, 
> James Davis (Davies), and Master Gome Carew, with the 
Rev. Richard Seymour as secretary or recorder. 

On the I7th, Gorges sent letters to Cecil and to the Privy 
Council, by his lieutenant. Captain John Barlee, relative to 
his colonial enterprises and official duties. On the 30th, 
Zuiiiga again reported to Philip III. Early in May the 
Spanish Council of the Indies and Board of War examined 
into and consulted about the acts and plans of the English 
for planting colonies in the Spanish Indies, and reports 
thereon were soon received in England from Sir Charles 
Cornwallis. On May 21, the committee on Spanish v^Tongs, 
appointed by the House of Commons on March 10, were 
at last ready with their report, and Sir Edwyn Sandys was 
ordered to make it " on Wednesday next ; " on which day 
Sandys made the report, which states, among other things, 
that " Tucker had thirteen sentences of restitution, but 
never could get execution," " A letter in Nature of a 
complaint of these wrongs from his Majesties Legier Am- 
bassador in Spaine to the Council of Spain was delivered 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605 — JULY, 1607 17 

in by the Reporter and read in the House." It was decided 
that the matter should be further debated and concluded on 
Saturday next. After the debate was concluded (May 26) 
a motion was made that a message should be sent to the 
House of Lords for a conference. " Sent by Sir Edwin 
Sandys. The answer returned by him. That their Lord- 
ships thought the Matter very weighty, and rare both for 
matter and manner ; that they would consider of it, and 
touching the conference desired, would send word by their 
own Messengers." 

On June 10, Captain George Popham made his will and 
wrote a farewell letter to Cecil. On the same day, " a fly- 
boat called The Gift of God, George Popham, commander, 
and a good ship, called The Mary and John of London, 
wherein Ralegh Gilbert commanded," sailed from Plymouth 
to plant an English colony in North Virginia. Ten days 
thereafter Sir John Popham, the lord chief justice, and 
chief patron of the enterprise, died suddenly. 

June 25, the House of Lords, ready for the conference on 
Spanish wTongs, proposed that it should take place on that 
afternoon, with the committee, which was agreed to. Dur- 
ing this conference the Earls of Salisbury and of North- 
ampton made speeches, which were reported, on June 27, by 
Sir Francis Bacon to the House of Commons : — 

The Earl of Salisbury (secretary of state) divided " the 
wrongs in fact " into three : first, the trade to Spain, sec- 
ond, the trade to the West Indies, and third, the trade to 
the Levant. As to the trade to the West Indies, Bacon 
reported his speech as follows : — 

" For the trade to the [West] Indies his Lordship did 
discover unto us the state of it to be thus : The policy of 
Spain doth keep that Treasury of theirs under such lock 
and key, as both confederates, yea and subjects, are ex- 
cluded of trade into those countries ; insomuch as the 
French king, who hath reason to stand upon equal terms 
with Spain, yet nevertheless is by express capitulation de- 
barred. The subjects of Portugal, whom the state of Spain 



18 UNDER THE CROWN 

hath studied by all means to content, are likewise debarred ; 
such a vigilant dragon is there that keepeth this golden 
fleece. Yet nevertheless such was his Majesty's magna- 
nimity in the debate and conclusion of the last treaty 
[160-1-5], as he would never condescend to any article, im- 
porting the exclusion of his subjects from that trade : as 
a prince that would not acknowledge that any such right 
could grow to the crown of Spain by the donative of the 
Pope, whose authority he disclaimeth ; or by the title of 
a dispersed and punctual occupation of certain territories 
in the name of the rest ; but stood firm to reserve that 
point in full question to further times and occations. So 
as it is left by the treaty in suspense neither debarred nor 
permitted. The tenderness and point of honour whereof 
was such, as they that went thither must run their own 
peril. Nay further his Lordship affirmed that if yet at 
this time his Majesty would descend to a course of intreaty 
for the release of the arrests in those parts, and so confess 
an exclusion, and quit the point of honour his Majesty 
mought have them [the English prisoners in Spain] forth- 
with released. And yet his Lordship added, that the of- 
fences and scandals of some had made this point worse than 
it was ; in regard that this very last voyage to Virginia, 
intended for trade and plantation where the Spaniard hath 
no people nor possession, is already become infamed for 
piracy : Witness Bingley, who first insinuating his purpose 
to be an actor in that worthy action of enlarging trades 
and plantation, is become a pirate, and hath been so pur- 
sued as his ship is taken in Ireland, though his person is 
not yet in hold." ^ 

For convenience of comparison with his speech, I will 
insert here Cecil's memoranda (already mentioned), made 
some three months before his speech, concerning Challons' 
" ship taken at sea going to Virginia." 

" It seemeth by the journal of the Treaty, that the ad- 
venturers into £,ny partes of the [West] Indias, should be 

1 I have no other account of this voyage of Bingley's. 



ENGLAND, JULY, 1605 — JULY, 1607 19 

leaft unto the perell which they should incurr thereby. 
Hereupon groweth this question, what is to be done with 
the Marryners that are taken in Spaine (being 18 or 20 
in number), as they were goeing from the West partes of 
England to a discovery into Virginia ; and what course is 
to be taken with the Spanish ship dryven into Bourdeaux, 
which ship was a principal actor in taking the English 
ship. First it must be considered, that although it is dis- 
puteable, whether Virginia be part of the Indias though 
it be situate upon the same continent of the West Indies ; 
yet for avoiding of the occasion thereby to fall into the 
generall question of the Indias and our trading thereinto, 
it might be advised that it were better to leave these pri- 
soners to their fortune, then by bringing it in question to 
stirr up some greater inconveniences that might ensue 
of it. 

" Secondly, if it be alleadged that they went but to a 
place formerly discovered by us, and never possessed by 
Spaine, it may be answered that this allegation altereth not 
the state of the question but only the forme, whether wee 
may trade into any partes of the Indias that are not pos- 
sessed by Spaine which point was then at the handling of 
the treaty directly denyed by the Spanish Commissioners. 
All which considered, it may be more aptly stood upon, 
that these prisoners having not yet oifended (unless it be 
an oifense, to be in those seas, which by the law of nations 
ought to be free quad navigationem), but were only going, 
towards a place, which is yet disputable whether it be al- 
lowable or not by the treaty, that in regard thereof, how- 
soever it may not seeme unjust to have stayd them and 
diverted them from their journey ; yet it seemes to be 
unjust so rigourously to punish them for it, as to committ 
their bodys to prison, and to take away their goodes. And 
therefore it may be concluded (under humble correction) 
that his Majesty may write in their favour, upon the termes 
aforesaid, to the King of Spaine, or to his Ambassador 
there : and may geve order to his Ambassador in France, 



20 UNDER THE CROWN 

to insist to demand Justice against the Spanish ship at 
Bourdeaux that tooke and robbed our men at sea, as Pyrats 
doe." ' 

The controversy over the petition, these prisoners, the 
EngUsh settling in territory claimed by Spain, the terms of 
the treaty, and over other national questions involved, 
continued to be carried on before the councils of England 
and of Spain. The affair may have been conducted in a 
dilatory manner, but it was done with diplomacy. And, 
however men may differ in opinion as to the manner and 
the diplomacy, the important fact remains that the issue 
over America was fully made in this Parliament between 
the Anglo-Saxon and the Spaniard, and it goes without 
saying that the Anglo-Saxon would continue the contest in 
one way or another, as seemed best to him, until he won 
the victory and secured a lot or portion in the New World 
for himself and his heirs. 

July 14, the ambassadors of the Low Countries (Dutch), 
the " silent " allies of England in this movement, arrived 
in London and were well received on all sides, " insomuch 
that the Spanish ambassador is ready to burst to see them 
so graced." 

Challons wrote from prison in Spain on June 26, and 
again on July 13 to Sir John Popham, which letters reached 
England and have been preserved. 

July 30, the Spanish ambassador in England made his 
regular report to the King of Spain regarding the Virginia 
design, in which he tells of the death of Chief Justice Pop- 
ham, " who was the man who most desired it and was best 
able to aid it," and Zuniga hoped that his death would put 
an end to the enterprise. But other Anglo-Saxons stood 
ready to step into his shoes. Destiny was shaping the great 
movement from the first, and men were only incidents 
therein. 

^ See, also, Limits of " The Spanish which may have been written prior to 
possessions" (Genesis, pp. 669-675), December, 1609. 



II 

VIRGINIA,! DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 

CAPTAIN EDWABD-MARIA WINGFIELD, PBESIDENT OF THE 
KING'S COUNCIL 

When making a study of the early voyages to our shores, 
it is necessary to consider the prevailing winds and the 
ocean currents/ because the sailing-vessels of those days 
were dependent on them in these voyages. It will also be 
interesting to note the ocean outposts, Iceland, the Azores, 
the Canaries, and the Cape Verde Islands, with respect to 
the various parts of America. A vessel lying off the west 
coast of Iceland would naturally drift southwestward, and 
the Northmen are said to have made voyages to our north- 
ern coast at a very early date by this route. Drift from 
our southern coasts, carried by the Gul£ Stream current via 
the Azores, would tell the dwellers there as plainly as " a 
man on horseback pointing to the west " could, that there 
were lands in that direction. And the current and trade- 
winds off the west coasts of the Canaries and the Cape 
Verde Islands would naturally carry a vessel to those west- 
ern lands within about thirty days. Columbus sailed by 
this route and returned to tell the tale. And it is more 
than probable that vessels with people from the Mediter- 
ranean shore had been carried to the shores of the Gulf of 
Mexico long before the time of Columbus, never to return 
to Europe again. 

On Saturday, December 30, 1606, the first expedition 

1 I use " Virginia " instead of tiou of America which we are consid- 

" America " for the head of the ering. 

American chapters, because that was ^ jgee Maury's Charts and the U. S. 

the name then used for the por- Pilot Charts of the North Atlantic. 



22 UNDER THE CROWN 

sent out for " The First Colony in Virginia " sailed 
from London in three vessels, namely, the Sarah Constant, 
Captain Christopher Newport ; the Goodspeed, Captain 
/ Bartholomew Gosnold ; and the Discovery, Captain John 
Ratcliffe. There has been some confusion as to the names 
of the ships. I have given the names as they were given 
to the ships by his Majesty's Council for Virginia, in their 
official orders for the voyage, that is, the official and there- 
fore correct names. Captain Christopher Newport had the 
sole charge and command of the voyage. If he died at sea, 
the masters of the vessels were to carry them to the coast of 
Virginia. January 15, 1607, they anchored in the Downs ; 
" but the winds continued contrarie so long, that we were 
forced to stay there sometime, where we suffered great 
storms, but by the skillfulness of the Captain we suffered 
no great loss or danger." They left the coast of England 
about the 18th of February. On the 22d they saw " a 
blazing star " (a comet, an ill omen), and soon after there 
was a storm. They reached the southwest part of the 
Great Canaries late in February or early in March. Here 
they remained several days taking on wood and water, and 
then sailed for Virginia via the West Indies. About March 
21, there were rumors of a mutiny by Stephen Galthropp, 
Captain John Smith, and others, of which we have no de- 
tailed account ; but we know that Newport had ample au- 
thority in such matters at sea. Smith tells us that he was 
restrained as a prisoner (unjustly) on account of this mutiny 
until June 20. 

The vessels anchored at the island of Dominico, April 3, 
where the emigrants remained until the 5th ; on the 6th 
they viewed the celebrated " boiling spring " in Guadeloupe, 
and that night landed on the Isle of Mevis, where Newport 
spent six days " to wood and water and refresh his men." 
When they reached Mona on April 17, the water, taken on 
at Mevis, " did smell so vildly " that they were obliged to 
throw it out and refill the casks on this island. April 20 
they set sail and " disimboged out of the West Indies," 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 23 

through " the Mona passage " (still used), sailing northerly 
for Virginia. As a matter of fact, from the anchoring at 
Dominico to the sailing from Mona was about seventeen 
days ; but during this time they had sailed over 600 miles 
toward Virginia, and had spent the greater portion of their 
time while on shore in taking on water or doing other 
necessary things. There was no really unnecessary delay. 

May 1 there was a vehement tempest, which carried the 
captain beyond his reckoning so that they had " to tackle 
back," sounding their way, on May 2, 3, 4, and 5.^ 

On Sunday, ^^~f , " about f oure a clocke in the morning 
we descried the land of Virginia : the same day wee entred 
into the Bay of Chesapioc directly without any let or hin- 
derance ; there wee landed and discovered a little way,^ but 
wee could finde nothing worth the speaking of, but faire 
meadowes and goodly tall trees, with such fresh-waters run- 
ning through the woods, as I was almost ravished at the 
first sight thereof." There can be little doubt but that 
their first act on landing, the day being Sunday, was to 
have the services of their church and to render their thanks 
to Almighty God. 

The voyage from the Downs to Cape Finistere is de- 
pendent on a favorable wind, which frequently has to be 
waited for. This was the only unreliable part of the route 
selected by Newport ; but under favorable circumstances it 
might be sailed over in ten days. The ocean routes to 
America north of the Sargasso Sea, " that vast and track- 
less waste, so long unexplored by the hardiest sailors," had 
to be sailed " in the windes eye, and the set of the current, 
a thing almost impossible " for the saihng-vessels of those 
days. From off the cape the route south of the Sargasso 
Sea was a natural one. There is a current, and a fairly 
constant wind, toward the Canary Islands, southward of 
which ships enter the regular trade-wind belt, in which the 
winds and currents are stronger near the centre, through 

^ So the vessels were not driven into the bay by this storm, the following 
four days being calm. 



24 UNDER THE CROWN 

which a sailing vessel wiU be carried from the Canaries to 
the West Indies in from twenty to thirty days, and thence 
through the Mona passage, or the Florida passage, via the 
Gulf Stream to Virginia in from fifteen to twenty days. 
The longest way around is sometimes the nearest way to 
our destination. It is the same route by which the same 
vessels, under competent commanders, would now sail. It 
is neither old nor new, because it is eternal. It is God's 
route, made by Him, by which both Christopher Columbus 
(the bearer of the religion of Rome) and Christopher New- 
port (the bearer of the religion of England) brought their 
ships to these shores. The parallels between these expe- 
ditions are interesting. Both commanders bore the same 
name, which means " bearing Christ," an object of both. 
Both commanded three ships, came the same route, and 
connected with both there is an indefinite account of a 
mutiny at sea. 

At night, on May 6, when the English were going aboard, 
the Indians made an attack on them, wounding Captain 
Gabriel Archer and Matthew Morton. That night the 
box containing the " several instruments close sealed " was 
opened, and the orders read, in which Bartholomew Gos- 
nold, Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John 
Smith, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall 
were named to be " His Majesties Council for the first 
colony in Virginia." We have the orders of his Majesty's 
Council for Virginia for the voyage and at their landing, 
and also their instructions for the colony after landing ; 
but the order appointing his Majesty's Council for the first 
colony in Virginia has not been found. As this council's 
authority did not begin until they had landed in America, 
to prevent a possible conflict of authority between the offi- 
cers of the voyage and the land officers, the order was not 
to be known (opened) until its legal efficacy began. This 
plan had been found to be a necessary precaution against 
a conflict of authority by the East India and Russia com- 
panies, and doubtless the idea had been derived from those 
companies. 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 25 

May 7, they began to build up their shallop. They ate 
some oysters in Lynnhaven Bay "which were very large 
and delicate in taste." 

May 8, they launched the shallop, and Captain New- 
port and some gentlemen went in her, and discovered up 
the bay, under the advice given to them by His Majesty's 
Council. Entering James River (which they named for 
their king) on the south side, they were disappointed in 
finding the water so shallow as to put them out of all 
hopes for getting any higher with their ships ; but towards 
night they rowed over to a point of land, where they found 
an excellent channel, which put them " in good Comfort. 
Therefore they named that point of Land, Cape Comfort." 

May 9, they set up a cross at Chesupioc Bay, claiming the 
land for the crown of England, and named that place Cape 
Henry, for Henry, Prince of Wales, a patron of the voyage. 

May 10, they brought their ships into the river at Cape 
Comfort, and Newport, causing the shallop to be manned, 
rowed to the shore. " Leaving ten men as centinel at the 
river's mouth," they went to Kecoughtan, and so on from 
day to day along up " King James, his river, looking for a 
suitable seating place ; " the ships following after the shal- 
lop with the tide, and Newport sometimes going back to 
them for the night. 

May 14, they came to the region where they finally 
selected their " seating place." 

May 18, they were viewing the localities about the mouth 
of the Appomattox River. 

May 22, on their way back to the ships, they discovered 
a point of land, which they called Archer's Hope, and " if 
it had not beene disliked, because the ship could not ride 
neare the shore, we had settled there to all the colonies 
contentment." There was some contention here between 
the advocates of this site and that of the future James- 
town ; but the latter site was finally decided upon. 

May 4^1 . The ships came up — on the evening tide, I 
suppose — to the place selected for their seating place in 



26 UNDER THE CROWN 

the Paspiha country, some eight miles from Archer's Hope, 
" where our ships' do lie so near the shore that they are 
moored to the trees in six fathom water." 

May 2~lj " we landed all our men which were set to work 
about the fortifications, and others some to watch and ward, 
as it was convenient." 

" After much and weary search (with their Barge coast- 
ing still before, as Virgil writeth ^Eneas did, arriving in 
the region of Italy called Latium, upon the bankes of 
the River Tyber) in the country of a Warawance called 
Wowinchapuncka (a ditionary to Powhatan) within this 
faire River of Paspiheigh, which we have called the King's 
River, they selected an extended plaine and spot of earth, 
which thrust out into the depth and middest of the chan- 
nell, making a Kinde of Chersonesus or Peninsula. The 
Trumpets sounding, the Admiral strooke saile, and before 
the same, the rest of the Fleet came to an ancor, and here 
to loose no farther time, the colony dis-imbarked, and every 
man brought his particular store and furniture, together 
with the generall provision ashore : for the safety of which, 
as like-wise for their own security, ease and better accom- 
modating, a certaine canton and quantit}'', of that little 
halfe Island of ground was measured, which they began to 
fortifie, and thereon in the name of God to raise a Fortresse, 
with the ablest and speediest meanes they could." 

They named their town, or fort, in honor of their king, 
James-town or James-fort. It was located " on the north 
side of King James, his river, as is London upon the River 
of Thames." 

It seems quite certain that Newport landed here May i\, 
from his shallop, while on his exploring voyage up the 
river, and that the actual landing of the colony was on 
May 24. The custom of celebrating May ys is probably 
due to Smith's history. This history, which uses the old 
style date, states that Newport left Jamestown, June 15, 
when we know that the correct date was June 22, and that 
its dates are frequently wrong and not as safe to be relied 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 27 

on as Percy's. But it does not really differ from Percy on 
this point. It simply says, " Untill the 13 of May they 
sought a place to plant in, then [i. e. aftei' that] the coun- 
cell was sworne [H*^]? M. Wingfield was chosen President, 
& an oration made, whie Captaine Smith was not admitted 
to the Councell as the rest." 

The oath taken by " his Majesties Counsel for the first 
Colony to Virginia " is somewhat similar to that taken by 
the King's Council of Virginia, which appointed them, and 
the seals for these two royal councils were also much alike. 
It was ordained under the king's form of government that 
his Council in Virginia '' shall by the major part of them, 
choose one of the same councel, not being the minister of 
God's word, to be president of the same Councel and to 
continue in that office, by the space of one whole year, 
unless he shall in the meantioie dye or be removed from 
that office ; and we do further hereby establish and ordain, 
that it shall be lawfid for the major part of the Councel, 
upon any just cause, to remove the President, or any other 
of that Councel, from being either President, or any of that 
Councel." This clause was one of the objections to the 
king's form of government. It destroyed the authority of 
the president, who was really a creation and a creature of 
" the Major part," an object for them to lay the blame on 
when affairs did not go smoothly ; and while the authority 
was really in the hands of the majority there was no sta- 
bihty about it whatever. It was a faction-breeding form 
of government throughout, and it continued to breed fac- 
tions so long as it remained in force in Virginia. The 
necessity for changing it must have been soon e^ddent to 
the managers. A stable and strong government was at 
first essential to the final success of the movement. On the 
other hand, the orders of the King's Council of Virginia 
(the managers) for the voyage and their advice for the 
colony after landing are, considering all things, excellent. 

The first night after their landing, about midnight, some 
savages came prying at them. The evil eye of the Indian, 



28 UNDER THE CROWN 

although sometimes pretending friendship, kept the English 
constantly within its sight, looking for any opportunity to 
do them harm, for many years. May 28, the werowance of 
Paspiha came himself with one hundred armed savages ; he 
made great signs to the English to lay their arms away ; 
but they would not trust him so far. The Indians, who are 
by nature cunning, were not ignorant of the danger from 
European arms. They told the French in Florida in 1565 : 
"Our women are afraid when they see the matches of your 
guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn 
faster." On the 30th the same werowance sent forty of his 
men with a deer as a present, and " they faine would have 
layne in the Fort all night ; " but the English would not 
trust them. 

May 31, leaving the rest at Jamestown, building, for- 
tifying, preparing ground and sowing corn, etc., Newport 
took George Percy, Gabriel Archer, John Smith, John 
Brooks, and Thomas Wotton, gentlemen ; Francis Nelson, 
John Colson, Robert Tyndall, and Mathew Fytch, mariners ; 
and Jonas Poole, Robert Markham, John Crookdeck, Oliver 
Brown, and ten other sailors, and went with them in his 
shallop to discover up the river as advised to do by the 
King's Council for Virginia. This expedition is generally 
called " one of Captain Smith's exploring expeditions ; " 
but Smith was still restrained as a prisoner, being under the 
charge of Newport. They reached a low meadow point 
about thirteen miles from Jamestown, that night, which 
they called Wynauk. The next day they passed up some 
sixteen miles to an islet which they called Turkey Island 
(Turkey Island Bend). Here an Indian, with pen and 
ink given him by Archer or Tyndall, laid out the whole 
river, so far as passage was for boats. " A great distance 
of, were the mountains Quirauk [the Blue Ridge], as he 
named them ; beyond which, by his relation is that which 
we expected," that is, the South Sea. They rested that 
night at a place about twenty-two miles farther up the 
river, which they called " Poore Cottage " or " Port Cot- 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 29 

tage." June 2, they feasted with the werowance Arahatee, 
in the country Arahatecoh, at a place they called Arahatec's 
Joy. At all their meetings since their landing at Kecough- 
tan, the Indians had always danced for them and taken 
tobacco with them. " They were so ravisht with the ad- 
mirable sweetnesse of the streame, and with the pleasant 
land trending along on either side, that their joy exceeded, 
and with great admiration they praised God." They were 
in every way delighted with the river. Percy wrote, " if 
this river, which we have found, had been discovered in the 
time of Warre with Spaine, it would have been a commodi- 
tie to our Realme and a great annoyance to our enemies." 
Some ten miles above Arahatec's Joy they came to " the 
second islet in the river [Drewry's Island], over against 
which, on Popham side, on a high hill, is the habitatyon of 
the great Kyng Pawatah, which they called Pawatah's 
Tower." The English called the north side of the river 
" Popham Side," for Chief Justice Popham, the patron 
of the northern colony ; and the south side of the river 
" Salisbury Side," for the Earl of Salisbury, the prime min- 
ister of England and patron of the southern colony. Some 
three miles above the islet they came to an overfall of water, 
which the Indians called Paquachowng, long known to the 
colonists as " The Falles," and to us as the site of Rich- 
mond, the head of tidewater. June 3 (Whit Sunday), they 
" feasted King Pawatah giving him beer, aqua vite and sack 
to drink. After dinner Captain Newport, upon one of the 
little ilets at the mouth of The Falls, set up a crosse with 
this inscription : Iacobus, Rex, 1607, and his owne name 
belowe." At the erecting thereof, they prayed for their 
King and for their own prosperous success in this his ac- 
tion, and then proclaimed his Majesty king of the country 
" withe a greate showte." That night they returned to 
Arahatec's lo}^, where they found the king suffering from 
the effects of their " hot drinks ; " but he was all right the 
next morning. Here, and elsewhere, Newport and Tyndall 
took observations for the latitude of the place, and notes 



30 UNDER THE CROWN 

for a " drauo-lite of our River." The accounts of their 

o 

personal experiences on the voyage down the river are very 
interesting-. They contain little of historic importance, 
however, save the accounts of the acts of the Indians, their 
ornaments of copper, pearl, etc. They reached Jamestown 
on June 6, where they learned what follows : " After the 
departure of Newport's expedition, on May 31st, the In- 
dians seldom frequented the fort save by one or two, now 
and then, practising upon opportunity m the absence of a 
part of the colonists ; on the day before their return [the 
Indians evidently knew when they would return, having 
been kept posted by runners] there came above two hun- 
dred Indians with their King, and gave a very furious as- 
sault to the fort ; endangering their overthrow, had not the 
ship's ordinance, as well as the small shot of the colonists, 
daunted them. They came up allmost into the fort ; shot 
through the tents ; appeared in this skirmish (which en- 
dured hot about an hour) a very valiant people. They 
killed a boy and wounded eleven men (whereof one died 
after) ; yet perceived they not this hurt in us. We killed 
dyvers of them ; but one wee sawe them tugg of on their 
backs, and how many hurt we knowe not. A little after, 
they made a huge noise in the woods ; which our men sur- 
mised was at the burying of their slayne men." During 
the skirmish " The Counsell stood in Front, in mayntayn- 
ing the forte, and four out of the five present were wounded, 
[Gosnold, Ratcliffe, Martm, and Kendall] and our Presi- 
dent, Mr. Wingfield (who shewed himself a valiant gentle- 
man), had an arrow shott cleane through his bearde, yet 
escaped hurte." 

June 6, Newport caused his seamen to aid the emigrants 
in completing their fortifications. 

June 7, " we laboured pallozadoing our Forte." The In- 
dians were still lurking about ; on the 8th they killed one 
of the English dogs; on Sunday, the 10th, they shot Mr. 
Eustace Clovell (who afterwards died of his hurt). 

Rev. Mr. Hunt had been reading the service and preach- 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 31 

ing a sermon every Sunday. May 10, on account of the 
delay caused by the alarm of the Indians, the day was far 
spent when their divine service was ended. And the minis- 
ter asked the president if it were his pleasure to have a ser- 
mon, and Wingfield replied that " the men were weary and 
hungry, and if it pleased him, we would spare him till some 
other time." In after-times, when Wingfield's religion was 
called in question, he was blamed for not having a sermon 
as well as the service, every Sunday. In his reply he makes 
the above explanation, and adds that " he never failed to 
take such notes in writing: of Mr. Hunt's sermons as his 
capacity could comprehend." 

The last advice given the colonists by the King's Coun- 
cil for Virginia was : — 

" Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good 
success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of 
your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the 
Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Hea- 
venly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out." 

We find nothing at variance with this until the factions 
began. After that the narratives are frequently filled with 
bickerings, belittlings, criticisms, faultfindings, etc. I have 
no doubt but that the first services of the Church of En 2:- 
land, both at Cape Henry and at Jamestown, were held under 
the canopy of heaven. After that they may have been held 
under a sail until the chapel was built. But I do not be- 
lieve that it was " an old rotten sail," for these men had 
just come up from the sea in ships, they had seen the power 
of God, and were filled with reverence and respect for his 
gospel, and the best they had was none too good for its 
observance. The conversion of the savages was their prin- 
cipal end, and their first object was to preach the gospel 
among them, and baptize them into the Christian religion.^ 

The Indians continued to hover around the fort. The 
English continued to work on their fortification, to make 
clapboards and to set corn. June 16, the company peti- 

^ See, also, The Genesis of the United States, p. 67. 



32 UNDER THE CROWN 

tioned the Council for reformation of sundry inconvenient 
courses. June 20, after an appeal from Newport, the 
petition was granted, and the whole company confirmed 
a faithful love one to another, and in their hearts sub- 
scribed an obedience to our superiors. " Capt. Smith was 
this day sworne one of the Counsell, who was elected in 
England." The next day the " Articles and orders for 
gentlemen and soldiers [which had been petitioned for] 
were read upon the Court of Garde, and content was in the 
quarter." 

June 23, Matthew Fitch, mariner, was wounded by the 
Indians. 

Monday, June If. " We had built and finished our fort, 
which was triangle-wise, having three bulwarks at every 
corner like a half moone, and four or five pieces of artillerie 
mounted in them, we had made ourselves sufficiently strong 
for these savages. We had also, sowne most of our corn." 

The side of the fort facing the river and landing was 
420 feet long, the other two sides 300 feet each. The 
bulwarks were for from three to five guns each. In the 
market-place was the "Corps du Gard," the chapel and 
storehouse. The houses faced the palisades, with a street 
between. 

June 26, two savages on Salisbury side of the river tried 
to lead Captain Newport into an ambuscade. 

July 1, Sunday, " wee had a Comunyon. Capt. New- 
port dyned ashore with our dyet and invyted many of us 
to supper as a farewell." 

Among the commodities carried to England at this time, 
it seems, was a small sample of real gold, and a barrel 
of " Fool's-gold." Captain John Martin was held respon- 
sible for this mistake. He was a son of Sir Richard Martin, 
a goldsmith and master of the mint of England. He had 
had some practical experience in matters of this kind, but 
it seems that he was mistaken in whole, or in part, as to the 
mineral sent over. As to no other mineral have the reports 
of real experts been so often incorrect, the one way or the 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 33 

other. When the reports of the South African gold-fields 
reached the Rothschilds, they sent an authority of the hio-h- 
est class there, and he reported to his principals that there 
was no gold in the region. Martin's error was not so bad 
as that. He had been selected as one of the officers in the 
celebrated Drake-Sidney voyage to America (1585), and had 
been with Gosnold on our northern coast at " Martin's (or 
Martha's) Vinyard." 

Newport carried with him to England the first report of 
" His Majesties Counsel for the first Colony to Virginia to 
His Majesties Counsel for Virginia in England " ; the first 
" Relatyon of the Discovery " up James River ; the first 
descriptions of the river, of the country and of the people ; 
letters from Robert Tyndall to Prince Henry, George Percy 
to Mr. Warner, a Dutchman to John Pory, William Brew- 
ster to the Earl of Salisbury, etc. ; TyndalFs " dearnall of 
our voyage " and " draughte of our River." I am now 
inclined to think that Tyndall's " dearnall of our voyage " 
is really " the Relatyon of the voyage up James River." 
The following has never been printed before : — 

William Brewster to the Earl of Salisbury. 

" Sir — it had byne my duty to have wroot the whoole 
jornye unto you, & so I would have done had not this our 
evar renowned Captayne, Captayne Newport, have come 
himself e unto you, whoe will so justly and truly declare, 
better than I cane, all this his discoverye. This is all I will 
saye to you, that suche a Baye, a Ryvar, and a land, did 
nevar the eye of man behould ; and at the head of the 
Ryvar, which is 160 myles longe ar Rokes & mountaynes, 
that prommyseth Infynyt Treasure, but our Forces be yet 
too weake, to make further discovery : Nowe is the King's 
Majesty offered, the most statlye, Riche Kingdom in the 
woorld, nevar posseste by anye Christian prynce ; be you 
one meanes amonge manye to further our secondinge, to 
conquer this land, as well as you were a meanes, to further 
the discovery of it : and you, yet maye lyve to see Ingland, 



34 UNDER THE CROWN 

moore Riche & Renowned, then anye Kingdom, in all 
Euroopa — " 

[The rest of the letter is cut off. I infer that the por- 
tion cut off contained information which Cecil did not wish 
made public] 

Cecil papers, 124-17 — . Indorsed, " A part of a Letter 
of William Brewster, gent, from Virginia." 

The first " Relatyon of the Discovery " up James River 
is not reprinted in " The Genesis of the United States ; " 
but I have made liberal use of it in compiling this chapter. 
Descriptions printed years after the country had been thor- 
oughly discovered are naturally more complete ; but the 
actual first impressions are more interesting, therefore I will 
reprint the first " description of the now-discovered river 
and country of Virginia ; with the liklyhood of ensuing 
riches, by England's aid and industry." 

" This river (we have named our King's River) extends 
itself a hundred and sixty miles into the main land, between 
The King's two fertile and fragrant banks, two miles, a mile, 
^^"^®^* and, where it is least, a quarter of a mile broad ; 

navigable for shipping of three hundred tuns, a hundred 
and fifty miles ; the rest deep enough for small vessells of 
six foot draught. It ebbs and flows four foot even to the 
An over- skirt of an overfall : where the water falls downe 
from huge great rocks, making in the fall five or 
six severall iletts, very fit for the building of water-mills 
thereon. Beyond this not two days' journey, it hath two 
branches, which come through a high, stoney country from 
certain huge mountains called Quirauk [the Blue Ridge] ; 
beyond which needs no relation (this from the overfall was 
the report and description of a faithf ull fellow, who I dare 
well trust upon good reasons). From these mountains 
Quirauk come two less rivers [the James and the Rivanna], 
which run into this great one ; but whether deep enough 
for ships or no, I yet understand not. There be many 
small rivers or brooks, which unlade themselves into this 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 35 

main river at several mouths ; wiiich veins divide the sav- 
age Kingdoms in many places, and yield pleasant Many small 
seats in all the country over by moistening the "^®*^" 
fruitful! mould. The main river abounds with sturgeon — 
very large, and excellent good ; having also, at 
the mouth of every brook and in every creek, 
both store and exceeding good fish of divers kinds ; and 
in the large sounds near the sea are multitudes of Multitudes 
fish, banks of oysters, and many great crabbs, *'*^^- 
rather better in taste than ours ; one able to suffise four 
men. And within sight of land, into the sea, we expect at 
[the right] time of the year to have a good fish- 
ing for cod ; as both at our first entering we 
might perceive by palpable conjecture, seeing the cod follow 
the ship, yea, bite at the . . . ; as also out of my own ex- 
perience, not far of to the northward, the fishing I found 
in my first voyage to Virginia. 

" This land lieth low at the mouth of the river, and is 
sandy ground, all over besett with fair pine-trees ; rpj^ j ,, 
but a little ujd the river it is reasonable high ; description. 
and, the further we go (till we come to the over- Lowland, 
fall) it still riseth increasing. It is generally re- Full of 
plenished with wood of all kinds, and that the 
fairest, yea, and best, that ever any of us (traveller or work- 
man) ever saw ; being fit for any use whatsoever, — as 
ships, houses, planks, pales, boards, masts, wainscott, clap- 
board, for pikes or else what. 

" The soil is more fertile than can be well expressed. It 
is altogether aromatical, giving a spicy taste to the roots 
of all trees, plants, and liearbs ; of itself a black, a fruitfuU 
fat, sandy mould, somewhat slimy in touch, and ^°^' 
sweet in savour ; under which, about a yard, is in most 
places a red clay fit for brick ; in other, gravel stones and 
rocks. It hath, in diverse places, fuller's earth, and such as 
comes out of Turky, called Terra sigillata [ochre]. It pro- 
duceth, of one corn, of that country wheat, sometimes two 
or three stems or stalks, on which grow ears above a span 



36 UNDER THE CROWN 

long, beset with corns, at the least three hundred upon an 
ear ; for the most part, five, six and seven hundred, [In- 
dian corn was a marvel to many of the EngHsh, it was so 
different from their wheat.] The beans and peas of this 
country have a great increase also : it yields two crops a 
year. Being tempered, and time taken, I hould it nature's 
nurse to all vegetables ; for, I assure myself, no known con- 
tinent brings forth any vendible necessaries which this, by 
planting, will not afford. For testimony in part, this we 
find by proof : from the West Indies we brought a certain 
delicious fruit, called apina ; which the Spaniard, by all art 
possible, could never procure to grow in any place but in 
his natural site. This we rudely and carelessly set in our 
mould, which fostereth it, and keeps it green ; and to what 
issue it may come, I know not. Our West-Indy plants of 
orenges and cotten-trees thrive well ; likewise the potatoes, 
pumpions, and melons. All our garden-seeds that were 
carefully sown prosper well ; yet we only digged the ground 
half a . . . deep, threw in the seeds at randome, carelessly, 
and scarce racked it. 

" It naturally yields mulberry-trees, cherry-trees, vines 

abundance, goosberys, strawberys, hurtleberys, respesses 

[raspberries], ground nuts, scarretts, the root 

The rubish ■- ^ ^. . ^, . . . i • i n i 

this land Called Sigillci christi, certain sweet thin-sheUed 
brin^eth uuts. Certain ground apples a pleasant fruit and 
°^*'' many other unknown. So the thing we crave is 

hooV'o^^^' some skillfull men to husband, set, plant, and 
Profit by dress vines, sugar-canes, olives, rapes, hemp, flax, 
licoris, pruins, currants, raisons, and all such 
things as the north tropick of the world affords ; also saf- 
fran, woad, hoppes, and such hke. 

" The comodities of this country, what they are in esse, 
is not much to be regarded ; the inhabitants having no 
The country commcrcc with any nation, no respect of profit ; 
comodities. neither is there scarce that we call meum et tuum 
among them, save onelj the Kings know their own terri- 
tories, and the people their several gardens. Yet this, for 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 37 

the present, by the consent of all our seamen : merely our 
fishing for sturgeon cannot be less worth than a thou- 
sand pounds a year, leaving herring and cod as 

., .,. . Sturgeon. 

possibilities. 

" Of clapboard and wainscot (if ships will but fetch it) 
we may make as much as England can vent. We can send 
(if we be frends with the savages, or be able to force them) 
two, three, four, or five thousand pounds a year Terra sigU- 
of the earth called Terra sigiUata ; saxafrage, 
what store we please ; tobacco, after a year or Tobacco. 
two, five thousand pounds a year. We have (as we sup- 
pose) rich dyes, if they prove vendible, worth more Dyes. 
than yet is nominated ; we have excellent furs, in ^"^™- 
some places of the country great store ; we can ^ ^ ' 
make pitch, rozen and turpentine. There is a Turpentine. 
gum which bleedeth from a kind of maple (the a maple 
bark being cut), not much unlike a balsam both ^^^' 
in scent and vertue ; apothecary-drugs of diverse sorts, some 
known to be of good estimation, some strange, of Wisacan 

I 1 J 1 xTT ^^ Virginia 

whose vertue the savages report wonders. We biood-wort, 

1 'Ji. lli.j.* £ T which heals 

can, by our industry and plantation oi comodious poisoned 
merchandize, make oils, wines, soap-ashes, wood- wo^°<is- 
ashes ; extract from mineral-earth, iron, copper, wj^gg 
&c. We have a good fishing for muskles, with Soap-ashes. 
reasonable mother-of-pearl ; and, if the pearl we iron. 
have seen in the Kinsfs' ears and about their necks ^^pp®'^- 

Pearl- 
come from these shells, we know the banks. muskeUs. 

" To conclude, I know not what can be expected from a 

comonwealth that either this land affords not, or may soon 

yield." 

"A Brief Description of the People." 

" There is a King in this land called Great Pawatah, 
under whose dominions are at least twenty severall King- 
domes, yet each king is potent as a prince in his own terri- 
tory. These have their subjects at so quick command, as 
a beck brings obedience, even to the restitucon of stolen 



38 UNDER THE CROWN 

goods ; which by their natural incHnation, they are loth 
to leave. They go all naked, save their privities ; yet, in 
cool weather, they wear deer-skins, with the hair on, loose. 
Some have leather stockings up to their twists, and sandalls 
on their feet. Their hair is black generally, which they 
wear long on the left side, tyed up on a knott ; about which 
knott the Kings and best among them have a kind of 
coronett of deer's hair colored red. Some have chains 
of long, linckt copper about their necks, and some chains 
of pearl. The comon sort stick long fethers in this knott. 
I found not a gray eye among them all. Their skin is 
tawny ; not so borne, but with dying and painting them- 
selves, in which they delight greatly. The women are like 
the men, only this difference, — their hair groweth long all 
over their heads, save dipt somewhat short afore. These 
do all the labour, and the men hunt and go at their plea- 
sure. They live comonly by the waterside, in Httle cottages 
made of canes and reeds, covered with the bark of trees. 
They dwell, as I guess, by families of kindred and alliance, 
some forty or fifty in a hatto or small village ; which towns 
are not past a mile or half a mile asunder in most places. 
They live upon sodden wheat, beans, and peas, for the most 
part ; also they kill deer, take fish in their weares, and kill 
fowl abundance. They eat often, and that liberally. They 
are proper, lusty, straight men ; very strong ; run exceed- 
ing swiftly. Their fight is always in the wood, with bow 
and arrows, and a short wooden sword. The celerity they 
use in skirmish is admirable. The King directs the battle, 
and is always in front. Their manner of entertainment is 
upon mats on the ground, under some tree, where they set 
themselves, alone, in the midest of the mat ; and two mats 
on each side, on which their people sit : then, right against 
him (making a square form) sat we always. When they 
come to their mat, they have an usher goes before them ; 
and the rest, as he sits down, give a long shout. The 
people steal anything comes near them ; yea, are so prac- 
tized in this art, that looking in our face, they would with 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606 — 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 39 

their foot, between their toes, convey a chisell, knife, percer, 
or any indifferent light thing ; which, having once con- 
veyed, they hold it an injury to take the same from them. 
They are naturally given to treachery, howbeit, we could 
not find it in our travel up the river, but rather a most 
kind and loving people. They sacrifice tobacco to the sun, 
a fair picture, or a harmfuU thing, — as a sword or [snap- 
haunce-] piece ; also they sprinkle some into the water in 
the morning before they wash. They have many wives ; 
to whom, as near I could perceive, they keep constant. 
The great King, Pawatah, had most -wives. These they 
abide not to be touched before their face. The OTeat dis- 
ease reigns in the men generally, fidl fraught with noodes, 
botches, and palpable appearances in their foreheads. We 
found above a hundred. The women are very cleanly in 
making their bread and prepareing meat. I found they 
account after death to go into another world, pointing east- 
ward to the element ; and, when they saw us at prayer, 
they observed us with great silence and respect, especially 
those to whom I had imparted the meaning of our rever- 
ence. 

" To conclude, they are a witty and ingenious people, apt 
both to understand and speak our language. So that I 
hope in God, as he hath miraculously preserved us hither 
from all dangers both of sea and land and their fury, so he 
will make us authors of his holy will in converting them 
to our true Christian faith, by his own inspiring grace and 
knowledge of his deity." 

Monday ^^^ in the morning Captain Newport in the 
Admiral (the Sarah Constant) departed from James Port 
for England — " for whose good passage and safe return 
they made many prayers to their Almighty God." The 
Goodspeed also returned at this time. The Discovery, a 
pinnace of about twenty tons, was left in the colony. This 
bark was too small to carry more than twenty-five with i)ro- 
vision for the voyage. Yet the King's Council of Virginia 
had instructed the Council in Virg'inia : " You must take 



40 UNDER THE CROWN 

order to draw up the pinnace, that is left with you, under 
the fort, and take her sails and anchors ashore, all hut a 
small hedge to ride by, least some ill disposed persons slip 
away in her." 

Captain Newport left one hundred and four persons in 
Virginia, and promised to return with supplies for them in 
November. 

An Indian came to Jamestown on July 5, from the 
Great Powhatan, whom the colonists now heard of definitely 
for the first time, offering them an Indian peace. This was 
the chief of the Powhatan Indians, whose name was " Wa- 
hunsenacawh." He dwelt some ten miles from Jamestown 
on the present Putin (Poetan) Bay of York River. The 
name of the " wyroance " who Hved near " Captain New- 
port's Falls" (who was under this great Powhatan, and whom 
the colonists afterwards called " the Little Powhatan "), is 
not certainly known, but it was probably " Mohominge." 

About July 13, " divers of our men fell sick," and dur- 
ing the sickly season of July, August, and September, all 
were sick and over fifty died. This must have been a 
great shock to the emigrants, who had at first thought the 
climate so healthy. The true state of the case, although it 
was not at first acknowledged, must have been suspected 
by many from this first experience. It was certainly known 
to the managers within the course of a few years, and they 
were obliged, in the interest of the enterprise, to conceal 
the fact, to shoulder blame which they did not deserve, and 
to smooth the trouble over in various ways, while their 
enforced silence gave to others, for personal or other rea- 
sons, an opportunity to attribute the death rate either to 
some fault of their management in England, of the sailors 
en route and in Virginia, or of the planters themselves. 

The number of newcomers to die during " the seasoning 
period," as will be seen in the following pages, was some- 
times more than sixty in one hundred, sometimes less ; and, 
although at times we have no definite record, we have suf- 
ficient to enable us to know that this figure was not far 



VIRGINIA, DECEMBER, 1606— 19TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 41 

from the average death rate among newcomers until after 
the land was somewhat cleared and drained. Of course 
the number of those who had become " seasoned " (as they 
called it) or acclimated was constantly increasing. And 
although for manifest reasons this class contended " that 
no place hath a more pleasant ayre then Virginia," the 
fact was, as Hagthorpe replied, " And so may that same 
ayre seem fresh to the senses wherein we draw the pesti- 
lence," etc. 

In order to do justice to our founders we must look at 
the real difficulties just as these then confronted them in 
England, en route, and in Virginia, in Spain, in France, etc. 
They cannot be fairly judged on partial accounts, or mere 
personal and partisan criticisms, whatever the motive. The 
difficulty in Virginia was not the climate only. The wary, 
cunning savages Avere there within their native wilds and 
woods. They were apt to pretend an especial friendship 
when plotting an especial mischief, and no one at all famil- 
iar with the Indian character can read the numerous con- 
temporary accounts without being convinced that they were 
really the enemies of the Enghsh from the first — continu- 
ing to hamper them in almost every way, and to kill them 
at every favorable opportunity. To contend against a peo- 
ple who have always lived in savage freedom, and who 
enjoy strength and vigor amid the deadly miasma which 
killed the English like a shot, was not mere child's play. 
The difficulties which had to be met and overcome in 
Europe, in America, and at sea, cannot be overestimated ; 
and those who devoted their lives to meeting these diffi- 
culties, until the task was accomplished, cannot be honored 
too much by their posterity. 

September 1, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold died, and 
after this the dissensions and factions began, which con- 
tinued as a difficulty so long as the king's form of govern- 
ment remained in force in the colony. In the beginning 
of the contentions. Captain George Kendall was removed 
from the council by the other councilors and put in prison. 



42 UNDER THE CROWN 

September 7, Thomas Studley, the cape-merchant (or 
cap-merchant — the head merchant — of the colony for 
procuring provisions, etc., and venting commodities), died, 
" and shortly after it pleased God (in our extremity) to 
move the Indians to bring us halfe ripe corn, to refresh 
us." All accounts agree that for some reason the Indians 
did daily relieve them for some weeks with corn and flesh. 
The supplies brought from England had been nearly ex- 
hausted ; the colonists had been too sick to attend to their 
gardens properly, and this act of the Indians was regarded 
as a divine providence at that time. All of the council, 
who were well enough to do so, traded with the Indians, 
and Captain John Smith, who was now acting as cape-mer- 
chant, was especially active. What was the real motive for 
the kindly acts of the Indians may not be certainly known ; 
but it probably boded the little colony a future harm. 



Ill 

ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1607 — APRIL, 1608 
ROBERT CECIL, EARL OF SALISBURY, PRIME MINISTER 

Captain Newport arrived at Plymouth on his way from 
Virginia on Wednesday, August 8, 1607, and at once wrote 
to Cecil making his first report to him. On Friday follow- 
ing he sailed from Plymouth for London. Gorges wrote to 
Cecil on August 17, telling him of Newport's good report 
of South Virginia, and urging the necessity for the colony 
there to be royally seconded with all the haste possible. 
He then thanks Cecil for his care for the release of the 
prisoners in Spain, and the rest of his letter relates to them. 

Newport sailed up the Thames on or about August 18 ; 
he brought with him the first documents written by Anglo- 
Saxons on the banks of James River in America ; he made 
a favorable report of the country to the King's Council of 
Virginia, and Sir Walter Cope, a member of that council, 
at once wrote the Earl of Salisbury : — 

" Right honorable my good Lorde — If we maye 
beleve ether in words or letters, we are falne upon a lande 
that promises more then the lande of Promisse. Insteed 
of mylke we fynde pearle — and golde insteede of honye. 
Thus they say, thus they wryte — but experyence the 
wysest Scoole - mistress must leade your Lordship, whose 
wysedom teaches to be of slow beleffe. Upon thys Tryall 
I presume you will buylde. Ther is but a barrell full of 
the earth, but ther semes a Kingdome full of the oare. 
You shall not be fedd by handfulls or hatfuUs, after the 
Tower measure. But the Elsabeth Jonas & the Tryumpe & 
all the ships of honor may here have their bellyes full — 



44 UNDER THE CROWN 

for in all their f ortyfycations, after two turfs of earth — 
This sparme or oare apearethe on every parte as a solid 
body, a Treasure endlesse proportioned by God acordinge 
to that Sufferaignes harte that rewards everyone & knows 
not how to say naye. 

" I could wyshe your Lordship were at the tryall and if 
it shall be as the proverb says aureos poUicere mo7ites. 
Then that his Majestie may undertake the honor of it and 
proportion our shares as in your wysedoms may be thought 
fit. — If not, that your word and presence may comfort 
the poor citizen of London who with a little help would 
adventure much more in this most hopef uU dyscoverye — 
Sir Thomas ^^^^ hereby the waye give me leave to inform 
Smith, ther you, that there be 50 citizens who have allredy 

governor, . . •' 

says this is subscribcd to adventure 500£ a peece in a pre- 

presuraes it scnt voyage to tlic East Indyes, I am verily per- 

^sUycon- swadcd that upon your Lordships mediation, in 

india*\o'^"'^ his Majcstics name, these adventurs may easily 

Virginia. bc couvertcd to this speedy supply, which might 

thanks for wcll stay for his Majesties leasure and better 

diiigence^'^ mcaus, but that in the mouth of this Ryvere ther 

Eowedin ^^ ^ place SO fortyfycd by nature, that if the 

your Lord- Spaniard, who will starte upon this alarum, re- 

ships next ^ JL 

letters.— covcr tliis place before us, Thys action is utterly 
seek^thiTof ovcrthrowuc, and I am credibly informed that one 
t erase ves. Qap^^iu HazcU, who upou Laiiier's information, 
was lately before you in Whitehall Garden, hath gotten 
away Captaine Waymouth, a man best experienced in those 
coasts, and they are as far as Deale Castle outward in ther 
way towards Spayne. I pray God they may be stayed least 
we repent ther going too late. — 

" To prove ther is gold, your Lordship's eyes I hope 
shall witness — To prove ther is pearl ther King of Pamont 
came with a cheyne of pearl about his neck — burnt thorow 
with great holes and spoiled for want of the art to bore 
them, and shewed them shells from whence they were taken. 
Pohatan another of ther Kings came stately marching with 



ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1607 — APRIL, 1608 45 

a great payre of buck's homes fastened to his forhead, not 
knowing what esteme we make of men so marked. For the 
rest I humbly leave your Lordship to Captaine Newport, 
whose honesty and good deserts I have known many years." 

The following are postscripts to the letter : — 

" The people used our men well untill they found they 
began to plant and fortefy — Then they fell to skirmishing 
& kylled 3 of our people." 

" We showed the experyenc made [the assay made by 
Captain John Martin in Virginia ?] to one Beale, an excel- 
lent tryer of minerals, who says the trial was ignorantly 
made, the earth not half tried — for if it had it would have 
turned black and the gold run together in the bottom. 
That this holds 1200" in the Tonn. That ther is more in 
the pot, and he verily thinks it will yeald 2,000'' at the least 
in the Tonn," say $45,000 present values. 

" By Salisbury shoare, you must pass to James Towne." 

" Ther is clapbord come fit, as I hear, to make wainscot. 
If your Lordship praye Captaine Newport to have the 
choyse, it will save you half in half." 

" One of ther Kings sick with drinking our aqua vita, 
thought himself poisoned. Newport told him by signes 
that the next day he showld be well, and he was so : 
And telling his countrymen thereof they came a pace, olde 
men & old women, upon every belliach to him to know 
when they showld be well." 

The letter is addressed " To the Right honorable the Earl 
of Salisbury hys Ma*^* Princypall Secretary." 

The king was then in Southamptonshire on his western 
progress. On August 22, he was at Beaulieu the seat of 
Henry, Earl of Southampton. On the same day Zuniga 
wrote to the King of Spain telling him what he had been 
able to find out regarding the voyage. They (the English) 
had had it reported to him that they were " not over well 
pleased with the country," etc. 

On the same day Sir Walter Cope wrote as follows to the 
Earl of Salisbury : — 



46 UNDER THE CROWN 

" Sr. It hath ever bene Incjdent to the Secretaryes 
place, to Receave with the same hande, bothe the good & 
the badd newes. Thys other daye we sent you newes of 
golde, and thys daye, we cannot returne you so much as 
Copper. Oure newe discovery ys more Lyke to prove the 
lande of Canaan then the lande of Ophir. Cominge thys 
daye to scale up under our Scales, the golden minerall till 
your Returne. It apeared at sight so suspycyous, that we 
were not satysfyed untill we hadd made f owre Tryalls by 
the best experyenced abowte the cytye. In the ende all 
turned to vapore, & Martyne hath cosyned the pore Cap- 
taine [Newport], the Kinge & State, & meant as I heare 
to have cosyned hys owne father, seeking by thys tempta- 
tion to have drawen hys father to have made over unto him 
somm supplyes, which otherwyse he dowted never to pro- 
cure. — Yet the wholl companye metes thys afternowne, 
abowte the spedye supplyes, which will not be now in such 
measure as formerly I wyshed. — Thus much I thought fytt 
to advertyze before your Lordship showld mete with hys 
Majestic." 

In justice to Captain John Martin, a son of Sir Richard 
Martin, the master of the mint, it must be said that Cope 
let his disappointment get the better of his sense of justice. 
Martin w^as deceived himself, so was Beale, and so were 
others then, and many since have been mistaken in like 
ways. 

In the evening the company met, and although they now 
had " no hope of any extraordinary consequence, yet only 
upon report of the Namgciblenesse of the River, i^leasure., 
fertility and scituation of the land, to their projected ends, 
they freshly and cheerfully determined to send supplies to 
the colonists as soon as possible." At the same time New- 
port did not rehnquish his hopes of finding gold. 

The king was at Salisbury from August 24 until about 
September 8, and the earl was probably with him there. 

On August 27, 1607, Sir Thomas Smythe wrote to the 
Earl of Salisbury : — 



ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1607 — APRIL, 1608 47 

" Wheras yt pleased your honorable Lordsliipe to sig- 
nifie your desiere to have a speedye dispatche of the shippe 
intended to be sent to Virginia, and for asmuch as Captaine 
Newporte doth fynde his error, in not bringinge of the 
same ore of which the firste tryall was ther made ; he is 
nowe mynded, to take upon hym the presente voyadge 
againe, and resolves never to see your Lordshippe before 
he bringe that w^th him which he confidentlie believed he 
had broughte before. And for the better and more speedye 
effectinge the same we thoughte goode to provide a nymble 
pynnace to accompany the other shippe, wherein he may 
presently returne ; and hopes to be here befor the middle 
of January next. In which ship and pinnace we intend to 
send one hundred men and victuals with all necessaries to 
relieve them that be ther. Which course if it shall please 
your Lordship to approve of, shalbe presently effected. 

" And I humbly rest at the comaundment of your ho^^® 
Lordship. Tho: Smythe." 

August 28, Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to Chamberlain, 
giving him the latest and first news from Vuginia, teUing 
him of Newport's return, etc. : " They write much commen- 
dations of the air and the soil and the commodities of it ; 
but silver and gold have they none, and they cannot yet be 
at peace with the inhabitants of the countrie. They have 
fortified themselfs and built a small towne which they call 
Jamestowne, and so they date theyr letters, but the town 
me thincks hath no gracefull name and besides the Span- 
iards who think it no small matter of moment how they 
stile theyr populations will tell us I doubt; it comes too 
neere ViUiaco. 

" One Capt Waiman [Weymouth] a special favorite of 
Sir Walter Cope's was taken the last week in a port in 
Kent shipping himself for Spain, with intent as is thought 
to have betrayed his friends and shewed the Spaniards a 
meanes how to defeat this Virginian attempt. The great 
Counsell of that state [the King's Council of Virginia] 



48 UNDER THE CROWN 

hath resolved upon a dubble supplie to be sent thether with 
all diligence. . . . Mr. Porie tells me of a name given by 
a Duchman who wrote to him in latin from the new towne 
in Virginia, Jacobopolis, and Mr. Warner hath a letter from 
Mr. George Pereie who names theyr towne James-Forte, 
which we like best of all the rest, because it comes neere 
to Chemes-ford." 

On the same day Captain John Barlee, Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges' lieutenant, wrote to Levinus Monke, the Earl of 
Salisbury's secretary, relative to the prisoners in Spain. 

September 14, Sir Thomas Smythe, the governor of the 
East India Company, bought some " beads and cloth " from 
that company for the Virginia voyage. The patrons of the 
voyage had been paying in their contributions to Smythe, 
who was the treasurer of the first Virginia company. 

September 22, Zuiiiga wrote a long letter to the King of 
Spain, relative to the Virginia enterprise, in which he urges 
the king to " command that such a bad project should be 
up-rooted now while it can be done so easily." He tells 
the king that " he had found a confidential person, through 
whom he would find out what shall be done in the Coun- 
cil (which they call the Council of Virginia)." 

Zuniga had asked audience of James I. (in order to pro- 
test against the Virginia enterprise) while he was at Salis- 
bury, between August 24 and September 8 ; but failed to 
see him. He reached Hampton Court on the 22d, and the 
next day the Spanish minister again asked an audience ; 
but the king sent him word that it pleased him to wait 
until he returned from Theobald's, where he was going the 
next day to hunt. 

It was probably about this time that Ralegh wrote to 
Salisbury proposing a voyage to Guiana in the south parts 
of America. In which letter he says, " The Jurney may 
go on under the culler of Virginia, for Newport will shortly 
return," etc. 

After it had been agreed upon " to send the supply to 
those that are gone, divers noblemen and gentlemen sent in 



ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1607 — APRIL, 1608 49 

their money, and divers attended to go in person, enough 
to perform the project for this supply in both kinds. But 
there were some private ends among our Company, which 
were so unjustly the stay of this," that Sk Thomas Roe, a 
member of the King's Council of Virginia, wrote to the 
Earl of Salisbury, telling him of these troubles and urging 
him to use his influence in hurrying up matters. Roe 
writes, " I would I had had any part but to compleyne be- 
cause it doth often savour of waywardness or spleene : I 
am guilty of neyther, but raysd with these considerations, 
and ye causes goodness : — That every mans reputation that 
hath beene scene in yt suffers, that no man can give any 
account to theyr noble frends that have beene drawen to 
adventure, but we must shamefully confess eyther we did 
not foresee ye difficulty, or now, that we have not ye con- 
stancy to persever. If this did not move us, yet should 
ye commiseration of so many miserable people borne in 
blyndnes, a conquest of soules above ye conquest of kyng- 
domes ; ye Honor and iwojitt to our Nation, to unake 
promnciall to us a land ready to supply us with all neces- 
sary commodytyes naturally wanting to us : In which 
alone we suffer ye Spanish reputation and power to swell 
over us. If these considerations be too remote, yet I thinck 
every man's conscience will tell him ther is a pyety to 
them that are there, gone upon promise of supply, or els 
ex]30sed to a most unchristian and lamentable fortune." 
Roe thought there was " no way but apparent ruyine, 
except your lordship would give some personal and prompt 
attention to the action." 

" Give mee leave," he writes, " to put your Lordship in 
mynd that you are named (from whence I receive such 
hart) ye Patron to this most christian and noble enterprise 
of plantation, a woorke, I hope, may bee a glory to your 
memorye, though you have in yt an end woorthyer your- 
selfe." He apologises for troubhng his Lordship, and de- 
sires " to attend your Lordship's leysure to cleare to your 
judgment thes abuses, and ye justice of this complaynt." 



50 UNDER THE CROWN 

James I. returned to Hampton Court on October 3, and 
for the fourth time Zufiiga sent to him begging an audi- 
ence ; but " he was sick with fever that day and he repUed 
that this, and his waiting for the Members of his Council, 
prevented his doing what I wished and that he would let 
me know when he was so disposed." 

The next day the John and Francis, Captain Newport, 
and the Phoenix, Captain Francis Nelson, sailed from Lon- 
don with the first supplies for Virginia, and then on the 
next day Zuniga received a message from the lord chamber- 
lain in which he was told that the king would grant him an 
audience on the following day, Sunday, October 7. 

On October 8, Zuniga wrote the king of Spain a long 
report of this diplomatic audience and winds up by saying 
that he thought " it very desirable that an end should be 
now made of the few who are there, as that would be dig- 
ging up the Root, so that it could put out no more." 

October 13, Gorges wrote to Cecil sending him " such 
letters and notes, as are late come to my hands out of 
Spain from Mr. Challounes by the which it may appear 
what hath been done on all partyes," etc. 

October 16, Zuniga again wrote to Philip III., telling 
him that " he had had to send to Hampton Court to remind 
the Council of the answer promised at his audience with the 
King ; " and that SaHsbury replied that " having discussed 
it with the King, James I. replied to him nearly what he 
had previously told Zufiiga." That is, nearly to the same 
diplomatic purport as Salisbury's own speech of June 25. 
Which reply was not at all satisfactory to the Spanish min- 
ister, who advises his king : " It will be serving God and 
your Majesty to drive these villains out from there, hang- 
ing them in time which is short enough for the purpose." 
That is to say, there was no time to spare. 

Philip III. also wrote regularly to Zuniga on this sub- 
ject. His letters of September 21, and October 28, have 
been preserved. On November 10, the Spanish Council 
of State made a report giving their views as to the bearing 



ENGLAND, AUGUST, 1607 — APRIL, 1608 51 

of tlie treaty on the Virginia controversy, and advising 
their king that the Windward fleet " should be instantly 
made ready and forthwith proceed to drive out all who now 
are in Virginia, since their small number will make this an 
easy task, and this will suffice to prevent them from again 
coming to that place." 

" And to this the whole Council agreed." 

December 6, Zuniga reports to Philip III., " As to Vir- 
ginia, I hear that three or four other ships will return there. 
Will your Ilajesty give orders that measures he taken in 
time ; because now it will be very easy, and quite difficult 
afterwards, when they have taken root, and if they are 
punished in the beginning, the result will be that no more 
will go there." But, regardless of the advice of council 
and ambassador, Philip III. was disposed to take his own 
time in all things. " The slow style of proceedings in Spain 
was notorious, and divers of the Spanish King's ministers 
acknowledged this fact." In this instance it may have 
been to their loss and the Anglo-Saxon's gain. 

December ^y, the Mary and John, Captain Robert Davis, 
returned to Plymouth from North Virginia. On the same 
day Gorges made his first report on this fact to Cecil, and 
two days thereafter he wrote again on the same subject. 

On November 2, John Stoneman, the pilot of the Rich- 
ard, made his escape from the Spanish prison, landed at 
St. Ives on December 4, and reached Plymouth about the 
6th, where he remained with Gorges until the 11th, when 
he went to London to make his report to " the Court of 
England." This report is probably embodied in his ac- 
count of "the Voyage of M. Henry Challons intended for 
the North Plantation of Virginia, 1606, taken by the way, 
and ill used by Spaniards." There are many letters still 
preserved m the Cecil papers from Challons, Nevil Davis, 
and others relative to these prisoners in Spain. Finally, on 
May 12, 1608, Gorges wrote to Cecil : " I thought it my 
duty to advertize your Lordship that Captayne Challoner 
hath made an escape out of Spaine and is arrived here 



52 UNDER THE CROWN 

having brought with him his bayle. Which he hath 
done for that he saw his cause so desperate, and his hope so 
small finding by the manner of their proceeding no likely- 
hode of other then a miserable conclusion of his tedious 
suit." Gorges goes on to fire Cecil's heart against Spain. 
Diplomacy was too slow for him ; he wanted war, and he 
was not the only EngHshman who was of that mind. 

December 22, Zuniga reported to the King of Spain 
that Lord Carew and Sir William Wade, members of the 
King's Council of Virginia, said they intended "putting two 
thousand men in Virginia before spring, — that it would be 
the greatest impediment to the Spanish West Indies, and 
that the Spaniards would not then be able to move them 
from there." January 17, 1608, the Spanish Council of 
State had a consultation over this letter. They advised 
that it should be referred to Count Lemos and the Board 
of War of the West Indies. The king agrees, and decrees 
that all necessary things must be done hastily and secretly. 

February ^V, 1608, the Gift of God, Captain James 
Davis, returned from North Virginia to Plymouth, and on 
the same day Gorges reported the fact to Cecil in a long 
letter relative to the enterprise. 

March 28, Zuniga wrote to the King of Spain that the 
persons interested in Virginia increased daily ; that the Earl 
of Lincoln had been added to the council, who was urgent 
that about 800 men should be sent within a month or so, 
and 2,500 to 3,000, as soon as possible. And ZuHiga 
deemed it necessary that Philip III. should have them in- 
tercepted on the way. 

Sir Thomas Gates, the first signer of the petition for the 
charter in 1606, a captain of a company of English soldiers 
then in service in the Low Countries, was commissioned by 
the King of Great Britain to command (with three other 
gentlemen, in the country of Virginia in colonizing the said 
countries) the proposed large expedition, and on April 24, 
1608, the States General granted him leave of absence 
for that purpose. 



IV 

VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1607 — 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1608 

CAPTAIN JOHN BATCLIFFE, PRESIDENT OF THE KING'S 

COUNCIL 

Captains Ratcliffe, Smith, and Martin went to Wing- 
field's tent on September 20, and, after deposing him, 
elected Ratcliffe to the presidency. The next day Wing- 
field was brought before " the President and Council upon 
their Court day," Captain Gabriel Archer having just been 
made Recorder of Virginia^ read the charges against the 
late President and there was a long squabble. 

Martin and other members of the council were now 
freely trading with the Indians. Smith was still acting as 
cape-merchant, and about this time went to trade with the 
Indians at Kecoughtan. 

Se]3tember 27, they had Wingfield again up before the 
court and there was another long squabble. 

October 2, President Ratcliffe struck James Read, the 
smith, and Read returned the blow, for which he was con- 
demned to be hanged ; but, according to one account, saved 
his life by revealing a proposed mutiny of Kendall, who 
was shot to death therefor, a day or so thereafter. His 
Majesty's Council in Virginia had power to fill vacancies 
caused by death or removal ; but, for some reason unknown 
to me, this was seldom done. This was one of Wingfield's 
complaints (and it seems a just one) against the Council. 

The little pinnace could not carry all away; but after 
November had come and Newport had not, there were 
several motions made, first for one part of the colonists, 
then for another, to go to Newfoundland or to England 

1 Had the original Recorder recently died ? If so, who was he ? 



54 UNDER THE CROWN 

for supplies. The matter was not arranged, however. Those 
who were to stay, remembering probably the fate of the 
Roanoke colony under like circumstances, were more will- 
ing to go themselves than to permit the others to go. 
And so each faction opposed (and prevented it may be) 
the going of the other. However, although Newport had 
not come, the frosts had. The men were regaining their 
health. The air was filled with wild geese, ducks of all 
sorts, etc. ; the river with fish, oysters, etc. ; the land with 
deer, wild turkeys, and game of many kinds. With the 
return of health and the feasting on these things, they 
became more and more reconciled to the country. 

The Indians still appearing friendly. Captain Si)iith in 
the barge with John Robinsoi^, Thomas Emry, George Cas- 
son, and six other Englishmen, left Jamestown on Thursday, 
December 20, to trade and to discover up the river of the 
Chechohomynies, in the hope of finding ^' some lacke," etc. 
On the fourth day, having gone as far up the river as they 
could in the barge. Smith hired a canoe and two Indian 
guides, and the next day, taking these with Robinson and 
Emry (and leaving Casson and six others with the barge), 
he proceeded up the river. This party was captured by 
the Indians on December 26 ; Robinson and Emry were 
killed, and Smith, for some reason known to the Indians, 
variously reported by the English then, and much argued 
over by others since, was saved. They also killed Casson 
and probably others of his party. The barge, however, 
with some of them, returned safely to Jamestown and re- 
ported that the Indians had killed the rest. Whereupon 
President Ratcliffe, who had two votes (a first vote, and in 
case of a tie, the casting vote), elected and swore in Cap- 
tain Gabriel Archer as a member of the council, against 
the protest of Martin, who was then supposed to be the 
only other member of the council alive in Virginia. 

While Smith was a prisoner, Powhatan is said to have 
had certain malefactors punished in Smith's sight. Some 
he is said to have had bound hand and foot and broiled to 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPT., 1C07 — 20TH SEPT., 1608 55 

death on fires ; and others had their heads laid upon the 
altar or sacrificing^ stone and their brains beaten out with 
clubs. After a captivity of fifteen days, Smith was sent 
home by Powhatan on January 11, 1608 ; he arrived at 
Jamestown early the next morning ; was at once " indited " 
and tried for the death of his two men ; convicted and con- 
demned to be executed. We have no full account of this 
trial. " But it pleased God to send Captain Newport unto 
us the same evenino;." 

Although the first return gave the managers of the enter- 
prise no hope of any extraordinary consequence, they had 
freshly and cheerfully sent Captain Newport from London 
on October 4. On the 18th he sailed from Gravesend on 
the John and Francis, with the Phoenix, Captain Francis 
Nelson, in consort, and finally, having been waiting for the 
wind, sailed from Falmouth for Virginia on November 2, 
1607 ; reached Santo Domingo December 9, and had 
sight of the continent the 30th. On January 3, 1608, they 
lost sight of the Phoenix (on which were about forty men) 
in a foof- The John and Francis reached Jamestown on 
Saturday evening, January 12. About 120 emigrants were 
sent from England on the two ships. Of these "near 100" 
lived to reach Virginia; probably about 70 came in at this 
time with Newport, and 30 some time after with Nelson. 
Among the first were Matthew Scrivener (who had been 
appointed to the King's Council in Virginia by the King's 
Council for Virginia in England) and, probably. Captain 
Isaac Madison, who was sent over as a surveyor in 1607 or 
1608. Of the 104 men left by Newport in Virginia in July 
he found only 38 or 40. The rest had died of the sick- 
ness, or had been killed by the Indians. Of the six mem- 
bers of the Council left in Virginia, Gosnold had died, 
Kendall had been executed, Smith was under condemnation 
to be executed, and Wingfield was a prisoner. Newport at 
once relieved the colonists with much needed supplies ; had 
Wingfield and Smith released, and " also by his comyng 
was prevented 3i parliament which ye newe counsailor, Mr. 



56 UNDER THE CROWN 

Recorder [Archer] intended tliear to summon." This no- 
table popular idea (an incident of peculiar historic interest 
to us) of the first proposed Parliament (General As- 
sembly ?) in our country is thus vaguely mentioned by 
Wingfield ; the full particulars have not been found. It 
may be that the free air of America was the proper nour- 
ishment for the popular ideas then germinating in the 
minds of the English. Purchas, in giving his reasons 
for the dissensions in Virginia, says, " The very Aire of 
the Indies [America] seemes to be of inclination and dis- 
position to contentions, which easily mine and dissolve 
the greatest and best enterprises." And George Donne, 
writing from Virginia to Charles I., in 1636, quotes and 
indorses this idea of Purchas, and, as an illustration of 
the fact, gives the recent deposition of Governor Sir John 
Harvey and election of Captain John West in his place 
by the General Assembly. 

Smith's history makes four leading statements relative to 
this time : First, that Smith was a prisoner " sixe or seven 
weeks ; " second, that Pocahontas saved his life ; thtrd, 
that he then returned to Jamestown and prevented its aban- 
donment ; and fourth, that he then, with the aid of Poca- 
hontas (for a week or more) saved the colonists from want 
until Newport finally arrived. As these statements rest on 
the same evidence, to impeach a single one of them is suffi- 
cient to impeach the rest, and other evidences, direct or cir- 
cumstantial, either contradict or cast doubt upon each one 
of these statements. The Pocahontas incident has been 
woven into a pretty, touching story which has appealed so 
strongly to human sympathy as to overshadow matters of 
the greatest historic consequence. The contending for it 
has been like fiddling while Rome was burning. We 
should have devoted our time rather to saving our earliest 
history from the smoke and flame with which it has for so 
long been concealed or obliterated. It is more important 
to rescue our foundation as a nation from the ideas con- 
veyed by Smith than it is to contend over the saving of 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPT., 1607 — 20TH SEPT., 1608 57 

Smith. We may not know why the savages saved him ; 
but as they sent him back with accounts of a ready way to 
the South Sea, gold mines, etc., it was probably their pur- 
pose thus to use him to decoy the weak colonists into some 
ambuscade. But however this may be, we should not allow 
personal questions or pleas to conceal or obscure important 
historic facts. It was really the opportune arrival of New- 
port with additional emigrants and supplies which saved the 
colony from want (and it may be from final abandonment 
by the English or destruction by the Indians) and Captain 
Smith himself from execution. Even if Smith was first 
saved by an Indian princess (which at best is an historic 
doubt), he was saved last by an English captain (which is 
an historic fact), and but for the last saving the first would 
have been to little purpose. 

Monday, January 14, 1608, the new supply landed, and, 
on the 17th, Jamestown was burnt ; the fire consumed 
nearly all the buildings in the fort, including the church, 
the library of Rev. Mr. Hunt, the storehouse for provision, 
and the store for ammunition. While the colonists were 
rebuilding the stores and other houses, Newport employed 
his mariners in rebuilding the church, " all which works 
they finished cheerfully and in short tyme." In the mean 
time, however, owdng to the loss of houses and clothing, 
there was great sufiering, for the winter of 1607-1608 was 
a remarkably severe one not only in Europe, but also in 
both North and South Virginia, and many of the old men, 
and of those recently arrived, died from unavoidable ex- 
posure to the cold. 

In February, 1608, Captain Newport sailed down James 
River in the pinnace with Smith, Scrivener, Tyndall, and 
many others on a voyage to Werowocomoco, for confer- 
ence and trade with the Great Powhatan. Going around 
by Point Comfort and out into the bay, they entered York 
River, and w^ent up to " Warow a Comaco " on Poetan 
Bay. Tindall now surveyed this route and river (as he had 
done the James in 1607), and made a " draught " of it up 



58 UNDER THE CROWN 

to the Fork, — naming Tyndall's (now Gloucester) Point, 
Newport's (now Too's) Point ; locating " Poetan," " Pa- 
maunke," etc. It was at this time that Powhatan is said 
to have desired Newport to come from Jamestown as a 
place unwholesome, and to take possession of another whole 
kingdom, which he gave him, called " Capa Howasicke." 
He also gave Namontack to Newport, " to be carried to 
King James, his land, to see him and his country, and to 
return to his king [Powhatan] the true report thereof." 
And in his lieu, Newport left Thomas Savage with the 
Indians. The Indians seem to have baited Newport also 
with the South Sea idea, and we are told that they sug- 
gested to him the leaving his ships at the Falls, and having 
a framed boat which might be conveyed, each man taking 
a piece till they were past the stones in the river (that is, 
above the Falls), and then to join the pieces together and 
pass the men on in the boat by water up the river.^ 

Newport returned to Jamestown, on March 19, " with the 
pinnace well loaden with corne, wheat, beanes, and pease 
to our great comfort and his worthie comendations." 

For the next thirty days the Council, including Captain 
Newport, were setting things in order at Jamestown, and 
loading the ship for England. He sailed April 20, 1608, 
taking with him Wingfield, Archer, McGuire, an Irishman, 
and Namontack, an Indian, Tyndall's chart, Percy's dis- 
course, White's description, Perkins's letter, a journal of 
his journey to Werowocomoco, and other documents un- 
known. He found only about forty, brought about 
seventy, and carried back at least two. And as we are 
told that " more than halfe died " in the hard winter of 
1607-1608, he must have left less than fifty-three. 

Francis Maguer (or McGuire), the Irishman and Roman 
Catholic, afterwards wrote an account of his voyage to Vir- 
ginia, and submitted it to the Privy Council of Spain. 

1 I have no means of knowing how several "improvements in the river," 
far such a boat might have gone at boats went from Westham to the 
that time ; but in after years, after mountains. 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPT., 1607 — 20TH SEPT., 1608 59 

The account of events in Virginia between March 19 
and April 20 was omitted in Smith's " True Relation," as 
printed. The " Oxford Tract " and the " General History " 
afterwards represent the colonists as loading Newport's 
ship, in a wild way, with a great quantity of "gilded 
durt." Francis Maguer, who returned in the ship, and 
the reports of others on her return voyage, do not tell of 
any great quantity of this stuff being sent at this time ; 
but that samples of minerals (real or imaginary), iron, 
copper, and other ores, were taken to England by each 
returning ship seems certain. Those who fail to accom- 
plish an object are prone to ridicule the idea afterwards. 
No member of the Council in Virginia devoted more time 
to searching for gold, the South Sea, and other things 
which they did not find, or to ridiculing such ideas after- 
wards, than Captain John Smith. 

Ten days after Newport sailed. Captain Nelson — who it 
seems had gone back to the West Indies and spent the 
winter there — arrived at Jamestown in " the long lost 
Phoenix." The acts of Newport while in Virginia at this 
time have been subjected to unjust criticism by the histo- 
rians, while Nelson has been praised. Yet if Newport had 
failed to arrive until Nelson did, I doubt if the colonists 
would have been found surviving the hard winter, even if 
the Indians had not murdered all. 

Captain Nelson left Virginia in the Phoenix, on June 12, 
1608, taking with him Captain John Martin, Smith's " True 
Relation," with a chart of Virginia, Smith's letter to Hud- 
son about the South Sea, etc. 

Captain Smith (intending to discover the South Sea him- 
self), in the barge with fourteen others, went down the 
river with Nelson, and, leaving the Phoenix near Cape 
Henry, proceeded on their voyage up the bay to discover 
the Potomac, the fourth river, which the Indians had told 
the English was of great importance, " flowing very far 
into the country until it meets another river, which flows 
to the South Sea." They entered the Potomac on June 26, 



60 UNDER THE CROWN 

and spent some three weeks in exploring it, probably up to 
the falls, in the mean time searching for mines, etc. They 
returned to Jamestown July 31, and " found the last sup- 
ply all sick," etc. We have not the details ; but the sickly 
season at Jamestown in 1608 was similar to that of 1607, 
not excepting the dissensions, and, according to Smith's 
account, not excepting the deposing of the president ; but 
this is a debatable point, and therefore cannot be given as 
an historical fact. 

They had failed to find the South Sea, via the Potomac ; 
but the savages ujd that river still kept the hope before 
them. The Indians there told them that it was not the 
river hut the hay which stretched to the South Sea. The 
bag of gold was at the end of the rainbow ; but the end 
was always to be in front of them. On August 3, having 
remained at Jamestown less than three days. Smith set out 
again on this discovery, with twelve others in the barge, 
to find whether " the bay were endless or how far it ex- 
tended." Two days after leaving Kecoughtan, those of 
the last supply on the barge were all sick with chills and 
fever ; but, they continuing on northward to the head of 
the bay, it seems that only one died. They failed to find 
the South Sea via the Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna 
River; but the Indians still kept the hope before them, 
leading them on. The route they were now told was not 
the bay, but via "the river of Canada" and the great 
lakes. 

They failed to find the South Sea, or the mines, but re- 
turned with these hopes (which they proposed looking into 
the next year) to Jamestown, on September 17, where they 
found "many dead, some sicke." 

A narrative which pretends to give a complete account of 
these two voyages was printed in Smith's " Oxford Tract " 
(1612) and in his " General History " (1624). From other 
partial accounts it seems that some of the discoveries 
claimed therein were not made until later (by Tyndall 
and Argall in 1610 and 1611) ; but it is not necessary to 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPT., 1607 — 20TH SEPT., 1608 61 

attempt to discuss to what extent this narrative can be relied 
upon. Captain (Nathaniel ?) Powell wrote an account of 
the voyage and made a map of the bay and rivers ; but the 
oriofinals have not been found. And the evidence remain- 
ing (or as yet found) regarding these voyages, as is so fre- 
quently the case in these controversies, is not sufficient to 
enable us to go into the details and deal fairly with all 
parties interested. 

These voyages furnish the ground for one of the com- 
plaints against Smith. They were made contrary to the 
instructions of the managers in England, who had ordered 
that Newport should refresh the newcomers after their long 
confinement on board ship, by taking them on the voyages 
of discovery, and thus gain two ends with one means, while 
the officials and older settlers in Virginia were to employ 
themselves about the settlement, raising supplies and putting 
the colony on a self-sustaining basis. On the other hand, it 
was natural for the colonists to resent an arrangement by 
which " to Capt. Newport the right for all discoveries did 
belong," and to wish to find the South Sea, mines, and 
other valuable things for themselves. But these voyages 
were made during the agricultural season, and at a time 
when the services of the men were especially needed at 
Jamestown about cultivating the crops. 

On September 20, 1608, the term of Captain John Rat- 
cliffe, as president of the Council in Virginia, definitely 
expired, and Captain John Smith, " as by course it did 
belong " (he being the senior to Scrivener in the Council), 
succeeded him in the presidency. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1608 — JANUARY, 1609 
BOBEBT CECIL, EABL OF SALISBUBY, PBIME MINISTEB 

May 11, 1608, a special commission was granted to Sir 
Thomas Smythe and others to minister an oath to all pas- 
sengers that desire to pass over the seas at the port of 
London, and to examine them. 

Sir Thomas Gates arrived in England from the Nether- 
lands about this time. While the preparations for the pro- 
posed extensive Virginian expedition were going on. Captain 
Newport arrived at Blackwell (May 31) from South Vir- 
ginia, bringing with him Captains Wingfield and Archer, 
and sundry documents. Their reports of the sickness and 
factions in Virginia, and of the supposed loss of the pin- 
nace, caused a stay in the large preparations ; but as an 
offset to the bad news, they brought Captain John Smith's 
certain news of a ready way about the fortieth degree of 
north latitude to the great South Sea. This news created 
excitement in the Virginia companies, and they hastened 
Newport's return. He had reached London only a few days 
before June 16, and on that day Zuiiiga wrote to Philip 
III. that " they were already preparing to send out Newport 
again in two months." He also wrote to the king on June 
26, 27, 28, and July 3. These letters (which must be 
regarded as very important, showing urgency) have not 
been found. Within one month thereafter, Captain Nelson 
arrived in England from South Virginia in " the long lost " 
Phoenix, bringing with him Captain John Martin, Smith's 
" True Relation," and the chart (showing and illustrating 
" the certain news " of the nearness of the South Sea), and 
other documents. The reports of Nelson and Martin again 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1608 — JANUARY, 1609 63 

hastened Newport's return, and he sailed withm less than 
two months — probably soon after the issuing of the " Bill 
of Adventure" (July 2I) to Henry Dawkes and William 
Leigh and signed by Richard Atkinson ^ — in the Mary 
and Margaret, prepared to attempt the way to the " great 
turning of salt water, within 4 or 5 dales Journey of the 
Falles," told of by Smith, and to find the gold belt up 
James River told about by Martin. He carried " rich pre- 
sents of Bason, Ewer, Bed, Clothes and a Crowne " from 
the Virginia Company to the Virginia prince, Powhatan. 
And men of " several trades and professions, honest, wise 
and paiuefull men," were sent to South Virginia. About 
the same time Captain James Davis (Davies, etc.) sailed in 
a ship laden fidl of victuals, etc., for the North Virginia 
Colony. 

July 29, Phihp III. wrote to Zuniga requesting him to 
obtain from well-informed practical men a special and de- 
tailed account of the position, location, etc., of the colony, 
" with the climate^ and everything else that concerns it — 
and you will briefly report of it all." 

August 23, Smith's " True Relation " (or a part of it), 
which had been brought from Virginia by Captain Nelson, 
was entered at Stationers' Hall for publication. This was 
the first account of the Virginia colony published to the 
world, and it is well known. 

On September 10, Zuiiiga received the report of the 
Spanish Council of State, of August 16, giving their rea- 
sons for sending to the galleys those of Challons' crew who 
had not escaped from Spain. On the same day Zuniga 
wrote to the king of Spain acknowledging the receipt 
of this report, and sending him a copy (or the original) 
of a chart of South Virginia, a drawing of St. George's 
Fort in North Virginia, and a report on Virginia, only a 
fragment of which remains. There is reason to believe 
that this report was a full copy of the " True Relation " 
which accompanied the chart from South Virginia ; but it 

^ Virginia Historical Magazine, vol. ii. pp. 183, 186. 



64 UNDER THE CROWN 

cannot be asserted as an historic fact. It is, however, quite 
certain that copies of this relation and chart were taken to 
Holland by Captain Henry Hudson in the latter part of 
1608. 

September 23, Philip HI. wrote Zuiiiga to send him, " as 
promptly as it can be done," certain papers concerning Vir- 
ginia. On November 8, Zuiiiga wrote to his king (at which 
time he probably sent the papers asked for), telling him " it 
is very important, Your Majesty should command that an 
end be put to those things done in Virginia ; because it 
is a matter of great importance — and they propose (as I 
understand) to send as many as 1500 men there ; and they 
hope that 12,000 will be gotten together there in time." 

The preparation for an extensive expedition under Sir 
Thomas Gates was still going on. 

December 12, Captain George Popham's will was recorded. 
The colony from North Virginia had but recently returned 
to England in. Captain Davis's ship and in the new pinnace, 
the Virginia, which had been built in North Virginia. 

James I. came to London on December 30, and the new- 
come Spaniard, Don Ferdinand de Girone, " had audience 
the next day with all solemnity of King, Queen, and all 
their children." This Spaniard was sent to England to 
offer in marriage one of the royal infants of Spain, and 
thus to begin negotiations by which the kings of these 
countries might settle to their own advantage, quietly, with- 
out expense or war, the Virginian and the other controver- 
sies. James I. was " playing the safe game ; " while feeding 
Philip with hopes deferred, the English were proceeding, 
" energetically," to take a firm hold on a part of the do- 
minion claimed by Philip III. in America. And Philip was 
playing somewhat the same sort of game, for about the 
same time he sent orders to Pedro de Ybarra, his governor 
and lieutenant-general of his Province of Florida, to send 
out a ship to explore the coast northward ; to find out ex- 
actly where the first English colony was, which was sus- 
pected to be settled at 37° 30' north latitude. " There he 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1608 — JANUARY, 1609 65 

[the commander of the expedition] shall exercise his utmost 
care to find out and see as much as possible, and to verify 
all that he may know, and that others claim to know 
about the people natives and foreigners." He was " like- 
wise to visit the isles in the Bay, where the people were 
found in the year 1587 [1586 ?] when privateer Francis 
Drake took them with him on his way back to England." 

" This duty being performed, he shall continue to sail 
along the coast, surveying it, etc., according to the direc- 
tions until he reaches 44° 30' latitude, where lies the Mina 
del Oro (Mine of Gold)." This was the region of the sec- 
ond English colony, which the Spaniards did not then know 
had been abandoned. 

January 8, 1609, Captain Henry Hudson, with the in- 
formation derived in his native England, entered into a 
contract with the Dutch to find for them a ready way into 
the western ocean by the north of the southern English 
colony. 

January 15, Zuniga wrote to the King of Spain that 
" the colony which the Chief Justice sent out to Virginia 
has returned in a sad plight ; " but still they proposed to 
send at once a good ship and a tender. Two days there- 
after he wrote that they were negotiating with Lord Arun- 
dell of Wardour and with Sir John Watts to command the 
proposed large expedition. Arundell had served with dis- 
tinction as a volunteer in the imperial army of Rodolph H. 
in Hungary, taking with his own hands the standard of 
the Turks, for which heroic achievement he was created a 
count of the sacred Roman Empire, December 1^ 1595. 
He was a brother-in-law to Henry, Earl of Southampton ; 
but he was a Roman Catholic, and this fact debarred him 
from any official service under the Virginia Company, 
which was soon after incorporated. 

While it is not necessary for me to give a detailed ac- 
count of the North Virginia colony, because its history 
has been fully and fairly written, still in order to under- 
stand the colonial movement as it developed in its course^, 



66 UNDER THE CROWN 

it is necessary to keep this colony constantly in the mind's 
eye. Owing to the death of several of the chief patrons 
(for at first these colonies were entirely dependent for sus- 
tenance and suj)port on the patrons in England), the Pop- 
hams, Sir John Gilbert, etc., the settlement of this colony 
was for the present abandoned, and it was determined to 
make a united effort for securing the hold in South Vir- 
ginia ; but England never relinquished her claim to the 
country ; her ships were probably sent there every year. 
And after 1612, the English in a very firm manner guarded 
the coast as being theirs, and expelled intruders. 

From the first the mind of James I. was constantly fed 
and flattered with the idea that he was the especially de- 
signed founder of England's colonial empire. To make 
this more evident became with him a constantly increasing 
desire, which fact has a most important bearing on our 
earliest history as first published. 

On New Year's day, 1609, Sir Francis Bacon presented 
him with " certain considerations touching the Plantation 
in Ireland," beginning, " It seemeth God hath reserved to 
your Majesty's times two works, which amongst the acts 
of Kings have the supreme pre-eminence ; the Union and 
the Plantation of Kingdoms. For although it be a great 
fortune for a King to deliver or recover his Kingdom 
from long continued calamities ; yet in the judgment of 
those that have distinguished of the degrees of Sovereign 
honour, to be a founder of estates or Kingdoms excelleth all 
the rest ; for as in arts and sciences to be the first inventor 
is more than to illustrate or amphfy ; and as in the works 
of God the creation is greater than the preservation ; and 
as in the works of nature the birth and nativity is more 
than the continuance ; so in Kingdoms the first f ouHidation 
or plantation is of more noble dignity and merit than all 
that followeth." 

Bacon, who was more interested in Ireland than in Vir- 
ginia, advises the king to have a royal council of planta- 
tion for Ireland. " Wherein I warrant myself by the 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1608 — JANUARY, 1609 67 

precedent of the like council of Plantation for Virginia ; 
an enterprise, in my opinion, differing as much from this 
[Ireland], as Amadis de Gaul differs from Caesar's Com- 
mentaries," etc. 

When Bacon wrote this other than royal influences were 
already developing in the free air of America. Smith's 
history, alluding to the departure of Archer from Virginia, 
says : '' And we not having any use of Parliaments, Plaies, 
Petitions, Admiralls, Recorders, Interpreters, Chronologers, 
Court of Plea nor Justices of Peace sent Captain Archer 
home that had ingrossed all those titles, to seeke some 
better place of imployment." Martin (who arrived in July) 
and Archer (in May) had been " educated to the law ; " 
they had seen the defects in the king's form of government, 
and the first " petitions " from the planters in Virginia for 
a change in the charter were probably brought to England 
by them. They continued in the same " imployment," and 
afterwards returned to Virginia under the charter "pe- 
titioned " for, which finally gave the colonists the right to 
elect their own " Parliaments, Justices of Peace," etc. 



VI 

VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1608 — JULY, 1609 
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT OF THE KING'S COUNCIL 

In the nineteen days of his presidency, between Septem- 
ber 20 and the arrival of Newport, according to Smith's 
history he accomplished more at Jamestown than Ratcliffe 
had in the year before. The events in Virginia during 
the first few years would have had more interest to us, 
and we could have narrated them with more satisfaction and 
with a greater reliance on their accuracy, save for the per- 
sonal factions among the colonists ; but the most impor- 
tant questions involved were at this time being settled in 
Europe, and England was then the basis of the enterprise, 
as well as the source of supplies. 

Although the reports from Virginia contained " nothing 
new " His Majesty's Council for Virginia " had courage 
and constancie to releeve " the colony again, and about 
the first of August sent Captain Newport in the Mary 
and Margaret from England, with Captains Richard Waldo 
and Peter Wynne appointed to be of the King's Council in 
Virginia, and sundry presents for Powhatan and supplies 
for the settlers. He reached Virginia early in October 
with about seventy emigrants, and found the colony, con- 
sisting of about sixty persons, in much the same general 
condition as when he arrived in the previous January, and 
owing to many of the same causes. 

For making of pitch, tar, and turpentine (ship-stores), 
soap-ashes, deal, wainscot, and such like, the company 
sent by Newport sundry " skillfull workemen from forraine 
parts, which may teach and set ours in the way, whereby 
we may set many thousands a worke, in these such like 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1608 — JULY, 1609 69 

services." " And many honest, wise and painefuU men, of 
every trade and profession, (going over in this supply,) 
showed that they were glad to go and plant themselves 
so happily, and their children after them, to hold and keep 
conformitie, with the lawes, language and religion of Eng- 
land for ever." 

Soon after the ship reached Jamestown, the presents 
(including a copper crown, presented in the name of King 
James) were given to the King of the Powhatans, and the 
crown was set upon his head by Captain Newport ; for 
which he w^as said to have granted the English freedom of 
trade and lands. 

In his history of Virginia, Smith states that Namontack, 
the Indian, who had been sent to England, returned with 
Newport at this time. In his history of the Bermudas, 
Namontack is said to have been killed by Matchumps on 
that island in 1609-10. If both accounts are true this 
Indian made two voyages to England. 

Captains Newport, Waldo, Wynne, Percy, West, Mr. 
Scrivener and others, made an exploration up James River 
above the Falls. There is no reUable detailed account of 
this expedition, and the dates are uncertain ; but it prob- 
ably began late in October and ended about the 27th of 
November. Captain Smith, who was not in it, attempts to 
ridicule it in his history. It was, however, an important 
expedition. The English went, for the first time, into the 
wilderness for any considerable distance beyond the pro- 
tection of their ships. They marched " four days journey " 
above the Falls, to the eastern gold belt of Virginia, and 
possibly to where "this river devyds itseLfe." In 1612, 
William Strachey, describing James River, writes : " Forty 
miles above the Falls, it hath two branches, or other rivers, 
that fall into it 5 the head of the northermost [the Rivanna] 
comes from certaine steepe mountaines that are said to be 
impassable ; the head of the other [the Fluvanna, now the 
James] comes from high hills afar of, within the land, from 
the topps of which hills, the people [Indians] say they see 



70 UNDER THE CROWN 

another sea — and that the water is there Salt." In an- 
swer to a letter from Charles I., of November, 1627, the 
General Assembly replied that, " 19 years ago, a mine had 
been discovered four days' journey above the Falls of the 
river." In the map of 1610, " Rossawick " is given as 
the name of an Indian town in the fork of the rivers, pre- 
sent James and Rivanna. No permanent settlement was 
made so high up the river for an hundred years or more 
thereafter. The earHest settlers of this section called one 
of the chief tributaries of the Rivanna River " Machumps " 
Creek, which was the name of an Indian who told the ear- 
liest settlers of Virginia much about the country ; and a 
large creek flowing into the James on the north side above 
the present Scottsville was called Totiere (Tolere, etc.) Creek, 
which probably locates it as formerly in the region of one 
of the eastern Siouan tribes of Indians. 

Captain Newport, in the Mary and Margaret, sailed from 
Virginia in December, 1608, with Captain John Ratcliffe, 
leaving Smith, Scrivener, Waldo, and Wynne as members 
of the Council. Smith was president, but the majority 
had the power to rule as they wished, and in his history 
Smith tells us that they did so. 

Soon after Newport's departure " there was a marriage 
betwixt John Laydon and Anne Burras (the maid of Mrs. 
Forrest — the first gentlewoman and womanservant that 
arrived in our colony — ), which was the first marriage we 
had in Virginia." I suppose that the ceremony was per- 
formed by a minister. If so. Rev. Robert Hunt must have 
been still Hving, unless some minister had come over of 
whom we have no record. 

From January 8 to late in February, 1609, Captain Smith 
was on his journey to Pamaunkee, of which he gives a long 
account in his history. 

Captain Waldo, Mr. Scrivener, Mr. Anthony Gosnold, 
Sr., and eight others, were drowned by the upsetting of 
their boat in James River, near Hog Island, about the mid- 
dle of Januarv, 1609. 



VIRGINIA, 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1608 — JULY, 1609 71 

Captain Wynne and Mr. Lee died probably in April, 
from which time, until August, Captain Smith was the only 
member of the Council in Virginia, " and would admitt no 
assistants." 

About May 20, the colonists were forced (leaving a small 
guard of gentlemen and some others about the president at 
Jamestown) to disperse the whole colony, some amongst the 
savages, but most to the Oyster Banks (some twenty miles 
below Jamestown), where they lived upon oysters for the 
space of nine weeks (May 22 to July 24), " which kind of 
feeding caused all their skins to peel off, from head to foot, 
as if we had been flaide." 

From 275 to 320 emigrants had been sent to Virginia 
under the royal administration of the enterprise. Accounts 
vary as to the number of survivors at this time, but it is 
quite certain that it was not over 109, and probably " about 
80 " is correct. 

I do not undervalue the very great importance of the 
period, 1606-1609 ; but it was " an experimental period 
which gave more light by the errors thereof what to avoid 
than by the direction of the same what to follow." 

Smith's history, in defending the king's form of govern- 
ment from the charge that it was " a faction breeder," laid 
the blame on the other councilors. He says, " Captaine 
Ratliffe is now called Sickemore, a poor counterfeited Im- 
posture. I have sent you him home, least the company 
should cut his throat. ... If he and Archer returne 
againe they are sufficient to keep us alwayes in factions." 
But the managers after considering aU the evidences finally 
accepted the views of the other councilors, and determined 
to ask for a changfe in the charter. 



UNDER THE COMPANY 

PART I 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR THOMAS SMYTHE 

I 

ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 

ORGANIZING COMPANY AND SENDING FIRST EXPEDITION 
UNDER NEW CHARTER FOR SETTLING COLONY 

Late in January, 1609, Newport returned from Vir- 
ginia, with Captain John Ratcliffe, and sundry documents, 
maps, etc. 

So far the enterprise had been largely experimental. 
The various reports brought by Newport at various times ; 
the personal reports of Wingfield, Archer, Martin, Nelson, 
Ratcliffe, and Newport, convinced " the governors and 
Councillors established for the Plantation of Virginia " of 
sundry errors which it was necessary to rectify. At this 
return of Newport, they write " experience of error in the 
equality of governors, and some out-rages and follies com- 
mitted by them [the presidents of the Council in Vir- 
ginia], had a little shaken so tender a body." And the 
managers of the enterprise, " perceivinge that the planta- 
tion went rather backwards than forwards," held special 
meetinofs at the Earl of Exeter's house and elsewhere in 
London, and " after consultation and advise [with Hakluyt, 
Hariot, and others] of all the inconveniences in these three 
supplies [1606, 1607, and 1608], and finding them to arise 
out of two rootes — the forme of govermyient, and length 
and danger of the passage by the southerly course of the 
[West] Indyes : — To encounter the first [the forme of 



74 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Government], they determined to petition the King for a 
special charter with such ample and large privileges and 
powers as would enable them to reform and correct those 
errors already discovered, and to prevent such as in the 
future might threaten them." 

Notwithstanding the past troubles in Virginia they were 
satisfied that by settling good government there, and send- 
ing more supplies of men, with means to plant the soil and 
make discoveries, all would end well. 

It must be remembered that this form of government, 
which had proven unsatisfactory to the managers, had been 
drafted by James I. himself, and therefore it continued to 
be an active factor in various controversies in the company 
and colony at various times until it reasserted itself again. 
And it must not be forgotten that the protests of Archer, 
Martin, Newport, and Ratcliffe (Wingfield made no objec- 
tion to the king's form of government ; but asserted that 
it was not complied with by the others) were the first from 
America against a royal form of government, and the re- 
sult — the beginning of popular charters — was the germ 
which gradually developed into a popular government 
(a free country) in America — the genesis of the United 
States. 

The first draft for the new charter annexed to the peti- 
tion was drawn up (probably late in January, 1609) by Sir 
Edwin Sandys. Among the additional privileges asked 
for were : A regular grant of incorporation, etc. ; extended 
and definite bounds ; the government of the colony to be 
committed to the company ; colonists to be free from cus- 
toms for twenty-one years, and from taxes (save imj^ort 
dues) forever. The twenty-first article strengthened the 
thirteenth article of the royal charter of 1606, and the 
twenty-second the fifteenth of the old charter by inserting 
the following words in italics : " and every of their chil- 
dren and Posterity which shall happen to be born within 
any of the Limits . . . shall have and enjoy all Liberties, 
Franchises and Immunities of free Denizens and natural 



ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 75 

subjects, within any of our other Dominions, to all intents 
and purposes as if they had been abiding and born, within 
this our Realm of England, or any other of our said Domin- 
ions." To this chartered rio^ht — " the inalienable risfhts 
of freeborn Englishmen " — our forefathers at the open- 
ing of our war for independence appealed when they again 
protested against the royal form of government in America. 

Sir Edwin Sandys was then the leader of the indepen- 
dent party in Parliament. He had already aided in draw- 
ing ujD " with great force of reasoning and Spirit of Lib- 
erty " the remonstrance against the conduct of James I. 
towards his first Parhament ; had contended that all pri- 
soners should have the assistance of counsel ; had been 
an advocate of the freedom of trade, an opponent of the 
monopolies held by companies ; had frequently appealed 
for a correction of the grievances of the people and against 
the impositions upon them by the crown ; and had already 
" learned to raise his voice for the toleration of those with 
whom he did not wholly agree." He had in mind a well- 
matured plan for the future good of EngHshmen, and when 
drafting the Virginia Company charters he inserted therein 
the authority which would enable him to put this plan in 
execution when the proper time arrived. 

In answer to the petition made by " divers of our loving 
subjects, as well adventurers as planters of the said first 
colony," the special charter was promptly granted by James 
I. As this charter had not only to go through the usual 
long official routine, but, also, as " every planter and Adven- 
turer was to be inserted in the Patent, by name," it was 
kept open to receive these names, and was not signed by 
the king and sealed until June 2, 1609. 

The special inducement presented to James I. for grant- 
ing this charter, conveying these popular rights to the 
company, was the fact that under the first charter the 
plantation, notwithstanding the king's denials, was really a 
royal colony, which fact was coming to be well understood 
by the Spaniards; and this company charter, on the king's 



76 UNDER THE COMPANY 

part, was a diplomatic agent, which enabled him to shift 
responsibility on the company and permit the enterprise to 
be carried on " at their own peril " without breaking the 
treaty. Under the first charter it was really the king's 
" owne worke." Under the company's charter the king 
was able to " owne it at his pleasure or disavowe it as 
might be best for his honor and service." 

'^ If it take not success it is done of ther owne heddes. 
It is but the attempt of private gentlemen, the State suffers 
noe losse, noe disreputation. 

" If it take success, they are your subjects, they doe it 
for your service, they will lay all at your Majesty's feet and 
interess your Majesty therein." 

This was a common diplomatic subterfuge. We find it 
in Gilbert's discourse to Elizabeth (November 6, 1577) ; in 
Cecil's memorandum and speech of 1607 ; in the reports of 
the audiences with Zuiiiga, and in the papers of the attor- 
ney-general. 

The comp§ny at once shouldered the responsility, and 
took the matter well in hand. To reform the government 
in Virginia, they selected Lord De la Warr to be lord 
governor and captain-general, with Sir Thomas Gates 
lieutenant-general, and Sir George Sommers admiral of 
Virginia, with Captain Christopher Newport vice-admiral. 
Subscriptions began at once, and they issued promptly a 
broadside which was distributed over England, calling 
upon all work-people, male and female, who wished to go 
to Virginia " to come to the house of Sir Thomas Smythe 
(the Treasurer of this Colony) in Filpot Lane," and " they 
will be entered as Adventurers in the present voyage to 
Virginia, where they will have houses to live in, vegetable- 
gardens and orchards, and also food and clothing at the 
expense of the Company, and besides this, a share of all 
the products and the profits that may result from their 
labor, each in proportion, and they will also secure a share 
in the division of the land for themselves and their heirs 
forever more." " And all who would give [one hundred 



ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 77 

Philips] before the last of March will be admitted as Mem- 
bers of the Virginia Company and receive a proportionate 
share of the profits, aitho they do not go in person on this 
voyage." 

In order to avoid the necessity for protecting from Spain 
two infant colonies so far apart, and owing to the death of 
Sir John Popham and Sir John Gilbert, and for other rea- 
sons, it had probably been determined to abandon North 
Virginia, at least temporarily, as early as July, 1608, when 
Captain Davis was sent back to Fort St. George with sup- 
plies only, and when Captain Daniel Tucker of the North 
Virginia Company went with Newport to South Virginia. 
But, however this may be, it is certain that on February 
27, 1609, the members of the North Virginia Company 
were invited to cooperate in forming, under the new charter, 
a new company for the purpose of making a concentrated 
effort, " and with one common and patient purse," to secure 
for England a fast hold on that land in the remarkably 
strong position afforded for their purpose by the natural 
construction of James Riyer,^ " safe from any danger of the 
salvages or other ruin that may threaten us." And many 
of that company accepted this invitation, were enrolled in 
the charter, and enHsted in the work. 

The general plan determined upon for securing a firm 
hold on the land was " so to set and furnish out under the 
conduct of one able and absolute Governor, a large supply 
of five hundred men, with some number of families, of wife, 
children and servants, to take fast holde and roote in that 
land — and this resolution was with much alacrity and con- 
fidence." The first idea was to send Lord De la Warr 
in March following with a supply of eight hundred men ; 
but it was afterwards determined to send Sir Thomas Gates 
first, and then Lord De la Warr. 

At one of the meetings held about this time, Robert 

^ The strategic importance of this lot was cast there, and the fate of our 
section reveals itself prominently in first and last revolutionary movements 
the history of this country. Our first was decided there. 



78 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Johnson, an alderman o£ London, and the recently chosen 
deputy treasurer of the Vbginia Company, delivered an 
important discourse, giving the plans, objects, and hopes of 
the company from the business standpoint of one of the 
managers of the enterprise, which was entered for publica- 
tion on February 28, 1609, under the title " Nova Britan- 
nia."^ After pubHcation it was distributed in many cities 
and towns of England, " exciting all such as be well 
affected to further the same." Johnson gives as the chief 
objects : First, to advance the kingdom of God ; second, 
to advance the kingdom of England ; and, third, to reheve 
and preserve those already in the colony, and to lay a solid 
foundation for the future good of this Commonwealth, 
under which head he told his hearers, " And take this ever 
as a rule, that domestic merchandising brings forth but 
poor effects in a commonwealth." He then tells of the 
various benefits likely to arise out of the foreign commerce 
of the future colony, " when we shall rear such merchant 
ships both tall and stout, as no foreign sail that swims shall 
make them vail or stoop : whereby to make this little 
Northern corner of the world to be in short time the rich- 
est storehouse and staple for merchandise in all Europe." ^ 

" Two things are especially required herein — First — 
people to make the plantation — second — money to fur- 
nish our present provisions and shippings now in hand. 
For the first we need not doubt," etc. But three sorts 
of people were not wanted — " First certain bad citizens of 
London ; 2nd Papists, and 3rd evil affected Magistrates." 
" And as for the general sort that shall go to be planters, 
be they never so poor, so they be honest and painfull, the 
place will make them rich : — We must first employ all kind 
of Artificers, as carpenters, ship-wrights. Masons, Sawyers, 
Brickmakers, Bricklayers, Plowmen, Sowers, Planters, Fish- 

1 See Force's Tracts, vol. i., no. vi., 29,880. Total tonnage, 25,614,089. 
and The Genesis of the United States, Of these, 15,095 vessels, representing 
pp. 241-243, 259-277. a tonnage of 15,593,751, were cred- 

2 In 1895 the total number of ves- ited to Great Britain and the United 
sels in the world was reported at States. 



ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 79 

ermen, Coopers, Smiths, Metal-men, Tailors, Turners, and 
such like to make and fit all necessaries, for comfort and 
use of the Colony," etc. 

" The second thing to make this plantation is money, to 
be raised among the adventurers, wherein the sooner and 
more deeply men engage themselves, their charge will be 
the shorter," etc. Planters were those who went in person. 
Adventurers did not go in person, but adventured their 
money. A single share was <£12 10s., to yield a dividend 
at the end of seven years. All who went to Virginia were 
to be registered in a book, " that it may always appear 
what people have gone to the plantation, at what time they 
went, and how their persons were valued," every extraor- 
dinary man, as divines, etc., having an extra value. 

" All charges of settling and maintaining the plantation, 
and of making supplies, shall be borne in a Joint Stock of 
the adventurers for seven years after the date of our new 
enlargement [the new charter] : during which time there 
shall be no adventure, nor goods returned in private from 
thence, neither by Master, Mariner, Planter, nor Passenger, 
they shall be restrained by bond and search, that as we 
supply from hence to the Planters at our charge all neces- 
saries for food and apparel, for fortifying and building of 
houses in a Joint Stock, so they are also to return from 
thence the increase and fruits of their labours, for the use 
and advancement of the same Joint Stock, till the end of 
seven yearns: at which time we purpose (God willing) to 
make a division by Commissioners appointed, of all lands 
granted unto us by his Majesty, to every [one] of the 
Colony, according to each mans several adventure, agreeing 
with our Register book." 

March 5, Zuiiiga wrote to his king, sending him copies 
of this discourse and of the broadside before-mentioned, 
and also a chart of Virginia, and telling the king of the 
great preparations of the Virginia Company, who had 
refused to employ the Lord of Arundell, because he was sus- 
pected of being a Roman Catholic, and that Arundell now 



80 UNDER THE COMPANY 

offered to aid the king of Spain in his efforts to remove 
the English from Virginia. Zuniga urges the king "to 
command that the EngHsh in Virginia should be destroyed 
with the utmost possible promptness," and " when this 
news arrives here, altho' they may resent it, they will say 
that they ought not to have been there, because when I 
spoke with this king about their going to those countries 
he said to me, that he could not hold them otherwise than 
according to the Treaty, if they gathered together there 
they were liable to be punished." 

Some days prior to March 26, the Council and Company 
for Virginia wrote a long and very important letter to the 
lord mayor (Sir Humphrey Weld), aldermen, and companies 
at London, urging them to take an active interest in Vir- 
ginia, " as an action concerning God, and the advancement 
of religion, the present ease, future honor and safety at 
the Kingdome, the strength of our Navy, the visible hope 
of a great and rich trade, and many secrett blessings not 
yet discovered ; we wholly commend the cause to the wis- 
dome and zeal of yourself and your Brethren, and you and 
it, and us all to the holy protection of the Almightie." 
On March 26, the lord mayor issued his precept to the 
several city companies, inclosing a copy of this letter, and 
asking them "to make some adventure in so good and 
honourable an Undertaking." To this, many of the com- 
panies replied favorably. Ministers of the Church of Eng- 
land were now taking an earnest interest in the movement, 
and the enterprise was favorably mentioned in sermons by 
Rev. Richard Crakanthorpe, Dr. Morton, Dean of Glouces- 
ter, Rev. William Symonds, Rev. Daniel Price, and others. 

The enthusiasm for Virginia caused by the change in 
the charter, form of government and other acts of the new 
company, was remarkable. Strachey says, " Not a yeare of 
a romain-jubile, noe nor the Ethnick-Queene of Ephesus, 
can be said to have bene followed with more heate and 
zeale ; the discourse and visitation of it took up all meet- 
ings, times, termes, all degrees, all purses, and such throngs 



ENGLAND, JANUARY— JUNE, 1609 81 

and concourse of personal undertakers, as the aire seemed 
not to have more Lights than that hoHe cause inflamed 
Spirits to partake with it. Ahiiost every rehgious Subject 
that stood sound indeed at the Coare within to Loialtie 
and to the profession of the present Faith brought his 
Free-will-offering, and professed then to throw his bread 
upon those waters." Other writers tell of "the alacrity 
and cheerefulnesse in the Adventurers by free will offer- 
ings to build up this new Tabernacle in Virginia." Zuiiiga 
was almost beside himself ; he wrote to his king repeatedly, 
urging him in every way " to give orders to have the inso- 
lent people [in Virginia] quickly annihilated." 

" Virginia Richly valued. By the description of the main 
land of Florida her next neighbour," was edited by the 
Rev. Richard Hakluyt, one of the first charter members 
of the Virginia Company. In his " Epistle Dedicatorie," 
dated 15 April (0. S.) 1609, to "the cheerfull adven- 
turers, for the advancement of that Christian and noble 
Plantation in Virginia," he writes, " This worke, . . . 
though small in shew yet great in substance, doth yeeld 
much light to our enterprise now on foot ; whether you 
desire to know the present and future commodities of our 
countrie ; or the qualities and conditions of the inhabitants, 
or what course is best to be taken with them." 

After reviewing the commodities he comes " to the sec- 
ond general head, concerning the manners and dispositions 
of the inhabitants ; among other things, I find them here 
noted to be very eloquent and well spoken, as the short 
orations, interpreted by John Ortiz, which lived twelve 
years [1528-1540] among them, make sufficient proofe. 
. . . But for all their faire and cunning speeches, they 
are not overmuch to be trusted, for they be the greatest 
traitors of the world. . . . They be also as unconstant as 
the wethercock, and most readie to take all occasions of 
advantages to do mischief. They are great bars and dis- 
semblers. . . . And many times they gave good testimonie 
of their great valour and resolution. To handle them 



82 UNDER THE COMPANY 

gently, while gentle courses may be found to serve, it will 
be without comparison the best ; but if gentle polishing 
will not serve, then we shall not want hammerours and 
rough masons enow, I meane our old soldiours trained up 
in the Netherlands, to square and prepare them to our 
Preachers hands." 

Soon after John Ortiz was captured in Florida, in 1528, 
the Indian chief Ucita was about to have him put to death ; 
but at the intercession of an Indian princess, one of Ucita's 
daughters, his life was spared. And again, when her father 
was about to sacrifice him as an offering to their god (they 
being worshipers of the devil), the same maiden rescued 
him again, taking " him halfe a league out of the towne 
by night, and set him in the way [to escape], and returned, 
because she would not be discovered." 

Hakluyt in this tract virtually concedes to Spain that 
part of America south of 34° north latitude ; while in the 
companion tract, which was translated under his direction, 
" New France," Virginia's next neighbor on the north, 
north of 45° north latitude, is conceded to France. These 
tracts, relative to Virginia's southern and northern neigh- 
bors, were prepared about this time, although " New 
France" was not entered for publication until June 22, 
1609. 

The new company was very active in every way in for- 
warding the movement. On May 5, Rev. William Symonds 
preached a sermon before the company.^ On May 8, Rob- 
ert Gray wrote " A Good Speed to Virginia " (which was 
entered for publication on May 13), going over much the 
same ground from a religious standpoint as " Nova Britan- 
nia " does from a business view. The author dedicates the 
tract to those interested in the plantation of Virginia, and 
assures them that " all posterities shall blesse and uphold 
their names and memories so long as the Sunne and Moone 
endureth." 

In his discourse he dwells much on the importance of 

1 See Genesis of the United States, pp. 282-291. 



ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 83 

having " ministers in the colony to resist popery which 
infests the mind with error, and the manners of men with 
disloyalty and treachery : artificers and tradesmen, for with- 
out them a commonwealth cannot flourish nor endure." He 
urges " the preserving the unitie of the spirit in the bond 
of peace," and against dissension among themselves, against 
deceit and fraud. " Seeing the beginning of a Common- 
wealth is now attempted, the foundation must not be laid 
upon fraud and deceit, for there can no good end be ex- 
pected of an evil beginning." 

The sermon by Rev. William Symonds was entered for 
publication on May 14. Copies of these publications, 
giving the ideas of their authors, have been preserved. 

The preparations for the voyages to Virginia were nearly 
completed. The one for finding a way to meet the second 
inconvenience — the length and danger of the old route — 
was ready first. 

" For the discovery of a shorter way and to make trial 
of the fishing within our Bay and River," Captain Samuel 
Argall, " an ingenious, active and forward young gentle- 
man," was selected. He "received the Council's commis- 
sion under their seal, with instructions (to avoid all danger 
of quarrel with the subjects of the King of Spain), not to 
touch upon any of his Dominions actually possessed, or 
rightly entituled unto, and to shape his course free from 
the road of Pyratts, that hang upon all streights and skirts 
of lands ; and to attempt a direct and clear passage, by 
leaving the Canaries to the East, and from thence, to run 
in a streight western course, or some point near there-unto. 
And so to make an experience of the winds and currents 
which have affrighted all undertakers by the North." His 
ship, of which Robert Tyndall, who had previously been to 
Virginia, was master, fell down the Thames from London 
about May 6, and he set sail from Portsmouth on the 15th. 

May 11, Edward Reed wrote from London to Mr. Coke 
of Wedgnock : " The sickness [the plague] increaseth. 
The Virginians go forward the next week." May 13, 



84 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Cecil ordered the officers of customs to permit all goods 
passing for Virginia to be transported free of " anie Cus- 
tome Impost or other Duties for the same." May 19, the 
Privy Council of England ^ request " the CoUedge of Her- 
auldes " to *' marshall and sett in order the names " of sun- 
dry noblemen, knights, and doctors (principal adventurers), 
so that they could be entered in the Virginia charter in 
their due places and rank. All names were finally entered 
in due order, and the charter was signed and sealed on 
June 2. 

To rectify the government — the first inconvenience — 
in Virginia, and to establish for the present a more absolute 
or stronger form, it was finally determined to send Sir 
Thomas Gates first, and, after hearing from Virginia 
through him, then to send Lord De la Warr, who was 
slated to be the lord governor. As soon as the charter 
was signed and sealed Gates received his commission as 
sole and absolute governor, with the authority of a vice- 
roy, and about June 8 hastened to join the fleet in the 
west of England, there staying for him. " Sir George 
Summers was commissioned as Admiral, and Captain New- 
port as Vice- Admiral of Virginia." Gates and Somers 
were appointed to reside in the country to govern the 
colony, and Newport was to continue to have charge of 
the voyages to Virginia. Seven ships of the fleet had 
sailed from Woolwich on May 25, and had reached Plym- 
outh the 30th, where Sir George Somers, with two smaU 
vessels, awaited them. One of these vessels was the Vir- 
ginia, of the North Virginia Company. Here the fleet 
took on sundry contributions of various members of that 
company and others of the west of England. Those of 
Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Freake, and other friends, 
amounted to £940. On June 1, Will Stalleng wrote to 
Cecil that the fleet was about ready. Gates arrived prior 
to June 12, on which day they set sail from Plymouth. 

^ The heading to this in The Genesis of the United States, p. 308, should read, 
"The Privy Council to the Heralds." 



ENGLAND, JANUARY — JUNE, 1609 85 

This was tlie first fleet sent out by " the Company for Vir- 
ginia in London." As I have given an outline of this 
great corporation in " The Genesis of the United States," ^ 
it will not be necessary to repeat it here. This account, as 
well as the foregoing, has been based for the most part on 
contemporary publications ; but evidence, then suppressed, 
recently discovered enables me to add the following impor- 
tant information : — 

The party in England calling themselves " advocates of 
English rights," " opponents of Spain," " the best effected 
to the English religion and liberty," "patriots," etc., was 
not satisfied with the " barring our trade to the West In- 
dies," or with " the advancement of absolute power then 
aimed at in England by King and court." " Whereupon 
many worthy Patriots, Lords, Knights, gentlemen, Mer- 
chants, and others held consultation [late in 1608 and early 
in 1609], and laid hold on this expectation of Virginia as 
a providence cast before them," and in the petition for the 
new charter they determined to ask for several privileges 
which would aid them in carrying out " their ends." 

Sir Thomas Smythe was selected as the treasurer of the 
new company in England because he had sympathized with 
the Earl of Essex " when his Lordship went to appeal to 
the citizens of London." Lord De la Warr, another friend 
of that Earl's, was chosen to be captain-general in Virginia, 
and Sir Thomas Gates, who commanded the first expedi- 
tion, had won his spurs under Essex. The leading man- 
agers of the movement under the company in England and 
in Virginia were members of " the patriot party." 

1 See Preface, pp. viu.-x., text, pp. 207-237, and Biography, pp. 807-1070. 



II 

VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, PRESIDENT OF THE KING'S COUNCIL, 
JULY-SEPTEMBER. CAPTAIN GEORGE PERCY, PRESIDENT 
OF THE KING'S COUNCIL, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 

Captain Argall set sail from " Portsmouth May 15, 
to find a more direct passage clear of the dangers of the 
West India route ; shaped his course South-South-West to 
the height of 30°, leaving the Canaries a hundred leagues 
to the East he found the winds large, and so took his 
course direct West, and did never turn nearer the South : 
and being in the longitude of the Barmudos he found the 
wind a little scant upon him, yet so that on July 23, he 
recovered our harbor ; and in tryall found no currant, nor 
anything else which should deter us from this way. He 
made his journey in nine weekes, and of that was becalmed 
14 days." As soon as he arrived he was to make trial of 
the fishing. The desire was to make this voyage appear as 
short as possible. It took near ten weeks ; but they say 
"nine," and it may be that he reached the coast on the 
23d, and the mouth of the river on the 24th ; or it may 
be that he arrived on the 23d, and had come down to the 
mouth of the river to fish on the evening of the 24th, 
when the Spaniards saw his ship. For he had found the 
colony in necessity and distress for want of victual, and he 
at once relieved them by fishing. 

The sickly season had begun some weeks before the 
arrival of Argall, and the last supply, brought by New- 
port, had to go through the seasoning, which certainly car- 
ried many of them off. 

Argall brought to Virginia the first news that the king 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 87 

had agreed to grant a special charter to " The Company 
for Virginia in London." He found Captain John Smith 
the president and only surviving member of the King's 
Council in Virginia. Although this Council had the right 
to elect members to supply the places of those who died, it 
had so happened that Scrivener, Waldo, and Wynne, the 
other members, had all departed this life near the same 
time, and thus it had come to pass that the matter rested 
solely in the power of Captain John Smith, who had re- 
fused to have any assistants ; and this was also a complaint 
agrainst him. 

June 19, 1609, Pedro de Ybarra, governor of Florida, 
under orders from the king of Spain, issued his order to 
Captain Francisco Fernandez de Ecija, of the garrison at 
St. Augustine (who in 1605 surveyed the coasts and bars 
as far as the Cape of San Roman, where he ransomed two 
Frenchmen from the Indians), " to embark on the ship 
Asuncion de Christo and explore all along the coast until 
he reaches 44° 30' latitude, in order to locate the favorable 
points along the coast for erecting fortifications at such 
harbors ^ as may be available for sheltering His Majesty's 
fleets sailinor out of the Bahama Channel on their return 
from the Indies to the kingdoms of Castile ; so that Ave 
may avail ourselves of said places as belonging to the 
domain of the crown of Castile." And in order to " find 
out whether there are on said coast and ports, settlements 
of people of different nationalities [that is, who were not 
Spaniards], who may have occupied such places without any 
authority, only wishing to take possession of them and there 
exercise their piracy ; so that we may take steps to avoid 
the many troubles therefrom likely to arise to the great 
injury of God our Lord, and of His Majesty, the King." 

To his order the governor appended long directions for 
the voyage. After passing the Cape of San Roman, Ecija 
was to sail only by day, keeping always on the lookout, 

^ For places of refuge for the Spanish fleets constantly returning to Spain 
via the Gulf Stream. 



88 UNDER THE COMPANY 

going carefully ahead " to 37° 30' latitude, where the^rs^ 
English are suspected to be settled in the region which 
they call Virginia, and which is called Bahia del Xacan 
[Xacan = Axacan = Occoquan] in our language ; there he 
shall exercise his utmost care to find out and see as much 
as possible. 

" He shall likewise visit the isles in the Bay where people 
were found in the year 1586, when privateer Francis Drake 
took them with him on his way back to England, as he 
lacked help and was afraid lest he might come across the 
Spanish Armada at the mouth of the Channel ; and with 
their aid he repaired and strengthened his vessels, accord- 
ing to the account of one of the prisoners, Pedro Diaz 
Franco, a citizen of Palma." 

Ecija was authorized to actually attack any ship or ships, 
if he deemed it advisable to do so. 

The Asuncion de Christo finally sailed from St. Augus- 
tine on June 26, 1609, under Captain Francisco Fernandez 
de Ecija, Ensign Juan Rodriquez de Cartaya (second in 
command), Ensign Juan de Santiago (" who in former days 
went to the coast of Virginia with Captain Vincente Gon- 
zales"), Sergeant Juan Rodriquez of the artillery. Sergeants 
Millan and Miguel de las Alas, Corporals Garcia and Diego 
de Cardenas, Francisco de Salazar Y. Zuiiiga (secretary), 
Andres Gonzales, the pilot, Domingo Rodriques, the boat- 
swain, Maria de Miranda, an Indian of Santa Elena (who 
had married Juan de Espinosa, a Sj)anish soldier), who went 
along as interpreter ; and thirteen sailors and soldiers, be- 
ing twenty-five in all. 

July 4, while in the Bay of Santa Elena (Beaufort, S. C), 
Descamacu, an Indian cazique, told them some vessel had 
passed the coast going northward a few days before. 

July 6, they reached the Bay of Cayugua (Charleston, 
S. C), where Alonso, an Indian converted to the Roman 
Catholic faith, who could speak Spanish, came aboard, and 
remained with them as interpreter several days. 

July 8, they reached the river Jordan (All Saints, or 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 89 

Winyah Bay, S. C. ?) where they remained a week, and while 
there had many talks with the natives, Maria de Miranda 
and the Indian Alonso acting as interpreters. The Indian 
chief told them that a vessel carrying a longboat at the poop 
had anchored near there thirteen days before. The Indian 
chief's brother told them that he Hved at a village some 
twenty miles north of the Jordan ; that four days' journey 
to the north of his village, at a place called Doxe, the In- 
dians had told him that about a day and a half's journey 
farther on, " in a region called Guandape,^ the English were 
settled on an island in a river that empties into the sea. 
That said island was aU surrounded by water, but was on 
one side in communication with terra firma. That in the 
port there were ordinarily ships, and about three months 
before there sailed from the same port seven ships, of which 
six sailed north and the other south ; that the latter had a 
flag hoisted, and that in the port there were some vessels 
in reserve. All this, he remarked, he had not seen with 
his own eyes, but had heard from the Indians of Guan- 
dape, who usually came and went where the English were. 
He likewise said that ordinarily ships were seen every day 
entering or leaving the port, and they came from the north. 
Upon being asked if we could see the English, he answered 
that he thought we could, for, from what he had been told, 
they were near the coast, and they could see us, because 
the island where they were fortified lay near the bar. And 
being asked if they had a fort, he answered yes, and added 
that he had heard that the fort was of wood. Besides this 
he was assured that the enemy were already confederate 
with the neighbouring Caziques, and had seven of them 
friendly and entertained them liberally, giving them cloth- 
ing and an abundance of iron implements, and got the 
Indians to do the sowing, as they (the English) did not 
busy themselves with sowing, but with fortifying." 

*' Francisco de Salazar Y. Zuniga, took down in writing, 
word for word, every thing the Indian said." 

^ See Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii. p. 285. 



90 UNDER THE COMPANY 

While here the Spaniards ransomed " Juan Corbe," a 
Frenchman, born at Havre de Grace, who had been with 
the Indians so long as to have forgotten his native language, 
and could speak only the Indian tongue. The Spaniards 
had been told o£ this Frenchman by the two ransomed in 
1605. He was with the Sati (= Santee = Santi) Indians, 
and was evidently from the old (1562-65) Huguenot settle- 
ment in Florida. 

They sailed from " the Jordan " on July 15 ; the cap- 
tain, being convinced of the accuracy of the Indian's grand 
account of the Enghsh settlement, was very much troubled, 
and at four o'clock that afternoon called a council of his 
officers, with whom he had a long consultation. It was 
finally determined to go on ; but to enter the Chesapeake 
under false colors, and pass as a ship from Amsterdam. 

They doubled the Caj)e of San Roman (Cape Fear, N. C.) 
on the 17th, and sailing only by day, at once began seeing 
" signals made by means of smoke along the coast." July 
18, the ship was dressed in her false colors, and the cap- 
tain made his men a speech. The same day they passed 
Cape of Trafalgar (Cape Hatteras). July 19, they came 
to Cape of Engano, and anchored near there until Monday 
morning the 20th, on which day " they discovered a Bar, 
where the English, as we heard, were settled, and where 
they had been in previous times." ^ They now continued 
on very slowly, feeling their way, constantly seeing " sig- 
nals made by means of smoke," which they concluded were 
made by the English and not by the Indians, and became 
more and more greatly alarmed at the apparent large num- 
ber of the Eno-lish. 

o 

July 24. " We came to the Bay of Xacan [Axacan = 
Occoquan ^] at five o'clock in the afternoon. When we 
were at a short distance from its southern promotory [Cape 
Henry], the man on the lookout spied a ship anchored in 
the Bay. As it was already late the Captain ordered us to 
anchor and forbear entering until another day." But they 

^ Roanoke Island ? ^ ggg j-^g Genesis of the United States, p. 947. 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 91 

slept little that niglit. The captain called another council 
and had another long consultation ; every officer gave in 
his views. They were all most anxious to serve " God oui- 
Lord and His Majesty the King, and to carry out the 
orders of the Governor in the King's name." But the 
Indian's account, the signal fires, and now this ship which 
they thought " one of such vessels as are assigned to guard 
the coast, had convinced them all that they did not come 
properly prepared for the task assigned them." 

At break of day on the 25th — "the day of St. James in 
whom we trusted " — a sailor saw from the top of the mast 
the same ship in the same place. " Hence there was no 
longer any doubt left that we were confronted by a hostile 
ship which was on guard." 

Evidently the Spaniards did not go far enough into the 
bay to see the mouth of the river ; but " Ensign Juan de 
Santiago and others, who in former days went thither with 
Captain Vincente Gonzales, said just where the ship stood 
there flows in a deep river." The narrator, Zuiiiga, says 
that the English ship sailed out after them and got near 
enough for them " to see that she carried two main-top-sails 
and a Flag, and that she was long and high ; " but the 
Spaniards were then sailing away too swiftly to enable them 
to see clearly, as the ship must have been Captain Argall's 
small ship ^ which had recently arrived. 

That night they held another long conference, and deter- 
mined not to attempt to enter the bay, and not to proceed 
on to the region of the second English colony. " Their 
ship was so small and leaky," they said, " and all knew that 
the main mast was sprung so that it was necessary to 
strengthen it with ropes." And finally, " that God our 
Lord and His Majesty the King would be best served by 
our going back " at once and reporting the valuable infor- 
mation which they had already found out ; and on Sunday 
morning, July 26, they began to retrace their course for 
St. Augustine, Florida. 

* Or a phantom ship, or some ship of which we have no other record. 



92 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The first fleet sent out under the first company charter 
sailed from Falmouth, England, June 18, 1609, in nine 
ships with the better part of 500 people, — men, women, 
and children. The Sea Adventure, Captain Christopher 
Newport (wherein were Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George 
Somers) ; the Diamond, Captain John RatclifPe and Cap- 
tain King ; the Falcon, Captain John Martin and Master 
Francis Nelson ; the Blessing, Captain Gabriel Archer and 
Captain Adams ; the Unitie, Captain Wood and Master 
Pett ; the Lion, Captain Webb ; the Swallow, Captain 
Moone and Master Somers ; the Virginia (of the North 
Colony), Captain Davis and Master Davis ; and the Catch, 
Master Matthew Fitch. They sailed via the Canaries 
route ; while in the tropic in the month of July many 
fell sick of the calenture or yellow fever, and out of two 
ships thirty-two persons were thrown overboard. In addi- 
tion to this the London plague is said to have broken out 
on the Diamond. In the midst of this trouble, upon Saint 
James Day ( /ugusu ) i^ crossing the Gulf of Bahama (the 
Gulf Stream near the Bahama Islands) a most terrrible tem- 
pest " which endured fortie four hours in extremitie " 
separated all of the fleet one from another. 

Five or six days after the storm, the Blessing, the Lion, 
the Falcon, and the Unitie (on which ship nearly all were 
sick) came together and laid away directly for Virginia and 
fell into James River on August 21. A few days thereafter 
the Diamond arrived, and within three or four days the 
Swallow. The Catch was lost at sea, and the Sea Adven- 
ture wrecked on the Bermudas. The emigrants brought 
were chiefly artisans of all sorts. 

Captain Henry Hudson in the Half Moon, in the service 
of the Dutch, searchmg for the ready way to the South 
Sea, was off our coast between 36° and 40° north latitude, 
from about August 19 to September 13. On August 28 
he came over " the Barre of Virginia," and near to " the 
entrance into the King's River in Virginia, where our Eng- 
lishmen are," but he did not enter. September 5 and 6 he 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 93 

was taking soundings, bearings, etc., " along the Banke of 
Virginia," which agreed with those taken by Robert Tyn- 
dall. 

The king, in the new company charter, had ordered that 
as soon as the governor or principal officer appointed by 
his Council for the company " shall arrive in Virginia, and 
give notice unto the colony there resident of our pleasure 
in this behalf, the government, power, and authority of the 
President and Council, heretofore by our former letters 
patents there established, and all laws and constitutions, by 
them formerly made, shall utterly cease and be determined," 
etc. But it so happened that the governor and other prin- 
cipal officers appointed were all on the Sea Adventure ; 
they did not arrive at this time, and, of course, the first 
charter and the king's form of government remained in 
force as the only legal authority in Virginia until they did. 

Under this form, upon the death or removal of the presi- 
dent or any member of the Council, it was lawful for the 
major part of that Council to elect another in the place of 
the party so dying or removed, so always as they shall not 
be above thirteen councilors, " and we do establish and 
ordaine, that the President shall not continue in his office 
of Presidejit-shijJ above the sj^ace of one year,^^ etc. 

Smith's history gives two accounts : first, that Ratcliffe 
was deposed about August 2, when Captain Smith took his 
place and substituted Mr. Scrivener in the presidency ; 
second, that " Smith tooke upon himself the place of Presi- 
dent on Sept. 20th 1608, which till then by no means he 
would accept," etc. Smith and Scrivener had the right, as 
they were the majority under the then form of government, 
to depose Ratcliffe, not only from the presidency, but from 
the Council, also, and to select one of themselves as presi- 
dent ; but there could be no substitution, and if the first 
account is correct. Smith's term of one year had expired 
about August 2, before the fleet arrived. If the second 
account is correct (and there is reason to think it was, as to 
the date), then his term did not expire until September 20, 



94 UNDER THE COMPANY 

1609. Owing to these conflicting statements (which were 
the grounds of other complaints against Smith) and other 
contentions, the new supply " being no sooner well landed," 
says Percy, " but presently a discencyon did grow between 
them and Capt. Smith, then President, but after some de- 
bate all was quieted and pacified." Smith was to remain 
undisturbed as president until September 20, and Captain 
Francis West was chosen to succeed him. 

Captain Samuel Argall was successful in fishing for stur- 
geon, and when he sailed for England, about SejDtember 10, 
he carried sufficient testimony as to the value of this com- 
modity both of the flesh and caviare. He also carried Ar- 
cher's ^ and other letters, with accounts of the condition in 
which he had found the colony, and in which he had 
left it. 

Percy says that Smith, about this time (after the sailing 
of Argall), fearing that the newcomers would become too 
strong for him, " so joggled with them by the way of 
feastings, expense of much powder and other unnecessary 
Tryomphs. That much was spent to no other purpose but 
to Insinewate with his reconciled enemies and for his own 
vayne glory for the which we all after suffered. And that 
which was intoUerable did give leave onto the Seamen to 
carry away what victuals and other necessaries they would 
— doing the same more safely in Regard the contents 
thereof (the bills of loading) was in the Admiral [ship] 
which was cast away." 

During the lull Captain Smith, then president, sent Cap- 
tains John Martin and George Percy with sixty people to 
Nansemond. They sent two messengers to the king of 
Nansemond offering to trade for an island at the mouth of 
the river ; the Indians killed them ; Percy landed with half 
of the men, took the island (probably " Ragged Island "), 
burned their houses, ransacked their temples, etc. The 
savages on the mainland and Captain Martin also fell into 
dissensions, and the English finally all came together on 

1 See The Genesis of the United States, vol. i. pp. 328-332. 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 95 

the island. " So having seen Capt. Martin well settled [on 
the island] Percy returned with Capt. Nelson to James 
Towne again according to apoyntmentte." 

About the same time that Martin was sent down the 
river, Captain Smith sent Captain Francis West with 
" about 100 men " up to the Falls, where the Indians soon 
killed and wounded some of them. " So that in small pro- 
cess of Tyme, Capt. Smith did take his jorney up to the 
Falls to understand how things were there ordered, when 
presently after his comeing thether A great devisyon did 
growe amongste them. Captain Smith perceaving both his 
authority and person neglected, incensed and animated the 
salvages against Capt. West and his Company, reporting 
unto them that our men had no more powder left them 
then would serve for one volley of shot. 

" And so Capt. Smith returning to James-Town again, 
found he had too much powder about him. The which 
being in his pocket where the spark of a match lighted 
very shreowdly burned him. And comeing in that case to 
James town Captains Ratcliffe, Archer and Martin deposed 
him of the government.^ ... 

" Smith being an Ambityous, onworthy, and vayneglori- 
ous fellowe attempting to take all mens authoreties from 
them for [although?] both Ratliefe, Archer and Martin 
being of the former Cowncell [had equal authority ?] Smith 
wolde rule all and ingrose all authority into his own hands. 
Although indeed there was no other certeine apointed gov- 
ernment then (For Sir Thomas Gates had comissyon who 
was then on the Bermudes), onely a yearly presidentship to 
govern by the Advyse of the Cownsell but Smith ayme- 
ing at A Soveraigne Rule without the assistance of the 
[other members of the ?] Cowncell was justly depryved of 
all." 

Captain West, who had been selected for president, 
being then settled at the Falls, the other members of the 
Council, having deposed Smith, now elected Percy to the 

^ See Spelman's account in The Genesis of the United States, p. 484. 



96 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Council, and then cliose him for the president, to act until 
the legal authority under the last charter arrived, "and 
then was Smith presently sent for England." ^ 

This happened on or about September 23, — that is, 
about two weeks after Argall sailed for England. Smith's 
term as president had expired ; but retaining the original 
royal commission in his possession, he was unwilling to 
give up his authority, and aimed to set up " a soveraigne 
rule " in Virginia. The other councilors knew that this 
instrument had been canceled in England ; but they also 
knew that it had been executed by the king himself, and 
that it was the only authority in the colony until the com- 
pany's commission revoking it arrived ; thus the conditions 
were so uncertain as to make them feel there was " no cer- 
tain appointed government," so that they hesitated to take 
it from Smith by force ; and thus in these " discencyons " 
he (holding the king's commission) held the whip-handle 
for a time. Smith, in his history, says that he finally told 
them " he was not unwilling they should steale it, but 
never would he give it to such as they," etc. 

Percy may not have stated the case very clearly, but as 
we have the original commission, etc., we can see for our- 
selves that he was in the main correct. Ratcliffe, Martin, 
and Archer, being the major part of the Council, had the 
right under the original authority to remove Smith from 
the presidency even before his term expired, and from the 
Council also, and to elect another president in his place. 
The dif&culty was the uncertainty then felt as to the " ap- 
pointed government." 

With these " discencyons " Captain Smith's career as an 
actor in South Virginia, under the crown, came to an end. 
After this his position, as to South Virginia, was mainly 
that of an author in England, criticising its management, 
under the company, until it was resumed by the crown. 

^ See, also, the extracts given from from the beginning), in The Genesis 
this " Relacyon " in the sketch of Percy of the United States, p. 964, and Rat- 
(who had been with Smith in Virginia cliife's letter, ibid., pp. 334, 335. 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 97 

From four hundred and seventy -five to five hundred 
men, women, and children were sent to Virginia in the 
first fleet of the Company in London, with supphes for six 
hundred people (the emigrants and those already in Vir- 
ginia) for one year. The supplies for the most part were 
ruined or damaged by the tempest. The Sea Adventure, 
with all the chief officers, and from one hundred and fifty 
to one hundred and eighty emigrants, was wrecked on the 
Bermudas. The Catch, Master Matliew Fitch, with all on 
board (about twenty) went down at sea. Four of the ships 
were infected with the calenture (yellow fever) and the 
London plague ; from sixty to ninety had died at sea, and 
only from one hundred and eighty-five to two hundred and 
seventy arrived in Virginia at this time, where they found 
less than one hundred and nine. They landed in the midst 
of the sickly season ; they brought the pestilence with them ; 
their supplies were badly damaged, and they found no ade- 
quate means to relieve them. They fell upon the small 
corn crop of the colony, " and in three days, at the most, 
wholly devoured it." 

Owing to the scarcity and condition of the supplies, and 
the sickness of the colonists. Captain Smith, then presi- 
dent, for their better rehef, divided them into three parties. 
Of these, as before stated, the companies of West at the 
Falls and of Martin at Nansemond at once became in- 
volved in a war with the Indians, who cut off " neere half e 
their men," took their boats, and forced the remainder at 
the end of six weeks (about October 12) to retire to James- 
town ; while of the third division, which remained at 
Jamestown, " one hundred sickened and halfe the number 
died." We have not the exact figures ; but from the con- 
temporary evidences it may be set down as certain that the 
end of September, 1609, saw less than three hundred Eng- 
lish living in Virginia, and that they were in a most de- 
plorable condition ; but in after years several writers, for 
sundry reasons, which will be explained hereafter, deemed 
it advisable, in the interest of the ideas of the king, or for 



98 UNDER THE COMPANY 

personal or other motives, to assert that the colony had 
been brought to a good state of forwardness. Neverthe- 
less, no human being can justly be held responsible for 
the actual state of affairs. The emigrant to Virginia really 
took desperate chances; if he escaped the London plague, 
with which he was apt to be infected, the scurvy, the fevers 
of the tropics, the dangers of the sea, and the sickness of 
the country, then the Indian stood ready to murder him in 
his weak and enfeebled state. 

In Smith's " General History " a glowing account is 
given of the condition which the colony had attained unto 
under the king's form of government, as administered by 
himself, when he left the country. And then a sad picture 
of " what happened in the first government after the altera- 
tion in the time of Captaine George Piercie their Governor." 

Captain John Smith's actual authority in Virginia ex- 
tended from the death of the major part of the Council in 
January, or February, 1609, to the arrival of the other 
surviving members (the majority) in August ; and so far as 
he is concerned the question is as to the condition in which 
the colony was found by Argall in July, and at the arrival 
of the fleet in August. And so, while the glowing account 
is not true, it is needless to argue the matter. Smith left 
the colony in no better condition than Argall and the other 
captains had placed it, and no credit can be given to him 
for the men or supplies brought by them from the new 
company in England. Although the royal charter had 
been superseded in England, and although this was known 
in Virginia, the king's form of government really con- 
tinued during " the time of Captaine George Piercie," as 
president. Smith's taking credit to himself, and the period 
of the royal form of government for men and supplies sent 
under the popular charter, and then throwing the responsi- 
biHty on the new form of government for the troubles of 
Percy's time, is in line with the rest of his misleading 
account of our foundation. 

From the original evidences written prior to 1611, which 



VIRGINIA, JULY — OCTOBER, 1609 99 

were free from subsequent influences, it is certain that the 
colony never prospered during the period in which it was 
definitely under the king's form of government, either in 
the presidency of Wingfield, Ratcliffe, or Smith. And no 
one can know that any one would have done better than 
Percy under the peculiar circumstances of the subsequent 
period of indefinite government, for there was a providence 
which was shaping our destiny from the first. 

It was providential that all of the members of the Coun- 
cil under that government were not capable, modest men 
who were not given to outrages or folhes of any kind, and 
it was providential that the king's form of government had 
resulted in failure, for it was owing to these facts that the 
new company was formed and the popular charter granted. 
If there had been no factional spii-its in the Council, if the 
government had been a success, the colony would have 
remained thereunder; the king would not have granted 
the new charter (even if he had been asked to do so), 
under which the new form of government was afterwards 
instituted in Virginia; the seed of popular rights would 
not have been planted at that time (if at all) in America, 
and the United States might not now be in existence. Our 
destiny would have been shaped for other and unknown 
ends. 



Ill 

ENGLAND, JUNE — DECEMBER, 1609 

PBEPABATIONS OF LORD BE LA WABB TO SECOND GATES 
INTEBBUPTED BY THE BAD NEWS FBOM VIBGINIA 

June 8, 1609, instructions were given to Captain Thomas 
Holcroft to negotiate the business of the Virginia Company 
with his Majesty's subjects in the Free States of the United 
Provinces, in which the past and future of the business is 
outlined. A resokition had abeady been taken to prepare 
ten ships and one thousand men to attend Lord De la 
Warr in the end of August, and his Majesty's subjects and 
others in the Netherlands were now to be invited to join 
the expedition. As Gates signed this document, he had 
not then left London. 

Tobias Matthew, Archbishop of York, writing to the 
Earl of Shrewsbury on June 18, " of our religion," etc., 
says : " For of Virginia there be so many tractates, divine, 
human, historical, political, or call them as you please, as 
no further intelligence I dare desire." In addition to the 
publications already mentioned, the sermon delivered by 
Rev. Daniel Price on June 7 was printed about this time, 
and P. Arondelles' translation of "Nova Francia" shortly 
thereafter. There had also been recently printed another 
broadside for circulation, the only remaining copy of which, 
so far as I know, is now in the Lenox Library, New York. 
" There is no imprint, but it is folded and inserted in one 
of the copies of Nova Britannia of 1609." In the origi- 
nal, blanks are left to be filled in with written date, ad- 
dress, and signatures. In this copy the date and address 
— which were probably to be added, when used, by a 
clerk — have not been filled in ; but at the end the original 
autograph signatures remain. 



'^>: 



ENGLAND, JUNE - DECEMBER, 1609 101 

" Considering- there is no publicke Action, being honest 
and good in itselfe, and which tendeth to the generall good 
and benefit of this Commonwealth, but that the same is also 
beneficiall and good in some degree, to every particular 
Member thereof, we thought it therefore requisite, to im- 
part unto you (as we have done likewise to many other 
Cities and good Townes, within the Land, whom it may in 
time very much concerne) how many wayes it hath pleased 
God to encourage us to goe on in that great worke and 
enterprise of planting Colonies of our English Nation in 
those parts of America, which wee commonly call Vir- 
ginia, or Nova Britannia; First, by moving the heart 
of his Majestie, to grant many gratious Priviledges under 
the great Scale to all that will adventure or undertake to 
further the same; and secondly, by stirring up so many 
honourable minded Men, Lordes, Knightes, Marchants, and 
Gentlemen, so willingly to engage themselves, that besides 
three severall Discoveries, which wee have formerly made, 
and have already settled there some few hundreds of our 
People ; we have Hkewise again within these few days, sent 
thither the better part of a thousand voluntary men, fur- 
nished with nine sayle of shippes, and all necessary Pro- 
visions, fit for so great an Action, the charge and ex- 
pence whereof (though it amounts to many thousand 
pounds) is already clearely defrayed with present money, 
without being indebted for any part thereof ; And which 
is not the least respect of God's providence, and an un- 
doubted argument unto us of Divine approbation, is that 
the Natives of that Country, being poore Heathenish peo- 
ple, without the Knowledge of God (which is the true light 
of Reason) are so desirous to embrace a better . condition, 
and for that they find the gentle disposition of our people 
to give them such content, that they doe willingly enter- 
taine us with Kindness and love — and their or-reatest Kinof 
PowGHATAN, by the testimony of Captaine Newport, and 
of other Captaines that have lately come from thence, hath 
granted Freedome of Trade and Commerce to our Ens^lish 



102 UNDER THE COMPANY 

people, to Plant, fortifie and possesse at our pleasure in any 
part of his Country, with condition to be loving to his 
people, and to defend him from his enemies ; witnessing 
the same by accepting a Copper Crowne presented unto him, 
in the name of King James, and set upon his head by Cap- 
taine Newport : And yet another and no lesse Argument of 
God's favorable assistance is this, that sundry Noble minded 
men in their owne persons, doe so willingly undertake (by 
God's permission) the present conduct and perpetuall Plan- 
tation of this People there, as namely the Right honourable 
and Religious, Sir Thomas West, Lord De la Warr, 
Lord Governour and Captaine Generall, with Sir Thomas 
Gates, Lieutenant Generall; and Sir George Sommers, 
Admirall of Virginia, and Captaine Christopher New- 
port, Viz-Admirall. All beeing well Knowne to be 
Knights and gentlemen of great worth, for speciall Services 
to God and their Countrie, who besides the furnishing 
their owne Traine and private Provisions, have layd downe 
and brought into the common Stocke, many hundred 
Pounds in ready money, and for that the said Knights, Sir 
Thomas Gates, Sir George Sommers, and Captaine J^eic- 
port, with their Shippes, Men and Provisions aforesaid, are 
now on their way, and departed the Coast of England : We 
doe further let you Know, that our purpose is (God will- 
ing) by the Conduct of the Right Honourable Lord De 
La Warr, with all convenient expedition, to make a new 
Supplie of men and shippes, with all necessary provisions to 
second them, in as large and ample manner, and by all the 
helpe and means we can procure, either of ourselves which 
are already interessed, or by any new Associates that will 
therein conjoyne with us, upon such hopefull grounds of 
future good, as by such an effectuall Plantation, may the 
sooner succeed unto us. 

" And therefore if it shall seeme good unto you, with 
your friends and neighbours to admit a conference as well 
with your Townesmen of [name of town] as with the Gen- 
tlemen and others of your Countie, such as be best affected 



ENGLAND, JUNE — DECEMBER, 1609 103 

to further such honest publicke Actions, and doe resolve 
among yourselves, to raise such competent summes of 
monie, as severall men shall thinke good to adventure, and 
shall put the same into the Common Stocke amongst us, we 
shall willingly accept and admit you into our fellowship 
and freedome, to participate with us in all equall priviledges 
and profites, both of the Lands in Virginia, to you and to 
your Heires, and in all the gaines of Goodes, Marchandizes, 
Mynes and Mynerals, and whatsoever other benefite shall 
be raised thence, after the rate and proportion of your 
stocke adventured, and for which your Towne shall receive 
from us a Bill of Adventure, under the Scale of the Com- 
pany ; the Copie whereof wee have sent you here inclosed 
to peruse, being such, as we have given to all other Ad- 
venturers, and are likewise now to give the same to all the 
severall Companies in London, which lately at the motion 
of some of the Honourable Lordes of his Maiesties Privie 
Councell, and by the diligent endeavour of the Right 
Honourable Sir Humphrey Weld Lord Mayor of Lon- 
don, are become Adventurers with us, and have put in 
amongst us a Joynt Stocke for the use of their severall 
Corporations. 

" Of which, so many of them, as also of you, as shall bee 
pleased to adventure a single share a peece, which is twelve 
pound, tenne shillings, or a double share of twenty-five 
pound, or more, shall each of them receive a bill of Adven- 
ture, for so much in their own particular names : Whereas 
all others for lesse Summes of money, doe come in as Sub- 
adventurers under that generall Bill of Adventure, to be 
given to that Towne or Corporation, whereof they are mem- 
bers. 

" And for that wee cannot herein without beeing too 
tedious describe our project more fully, nor shew in partic- 
ular, how acceptable to Almighty God, how comfortable 
to so many blinde soules, that live and die in ignorance for 
want of light, how profitable to this whole land, and bene- 
ficiall to every one of us this enterprise (by Gods blessing) 



104 UNDER THE COMPANY 

may in short time shew and manifest itselfe ; we have also 
sent you annexed hereunto, some few of our Printed Bookes 
[Nova Britannia], which by reading and divulging the same 
among your friends, will further enforme you of each par- 
ticular. 

" And whereas you shall therein reade, that we purpose 
to maintaine and carry all in a Joynt Stocke for seven yeares, 
and then to devide the lands, &c. Yet we thought it meete 
to let you know, that the Stocke and Marchandize which 
shall arise from thence, we purpose sooner and so often as 
the greatenesse of it shall surmount the charge, to make 
a Divident and distribution thereof to every man according 
to his Bill of Adventure. 

" And further wee doe assure you that it is no way our 
purpose or meaning, to enforce or cause any man, having 
once adventured, to adventure or supply any more, except 
of his owne motion and willingnesse he shall be so disposed, 
neyther shall he loose his former adventure, for we doubt 
not (by God's helpe) but after the second returne from 
thence, to have sufficient matter returned to defray all 
charges of new supplies, and to give satisfaction to men 
that have adventured. 

" And so leaving it to your wise and best advised con- 
sideration, when we shall receive your annswere, which wee 
pray with your convenient expedition may be returned to 
Sir Thomas Smith in Phil-pot Lane in London, Treasurer 
for the Colonie, you shall then finde us ready to performe 
in what we may, to your best content. 

" H. Southampton ^ Pembroke 
Tho. La Warre R. Lisle 

G. Carew W. Waade 

Tho. Smythe Walter Cope 

G. CoppiN Tho. Roe." 

1 [Henry Earl of Southampton, Lisle, George Lord Carew, Sir Wm. 
William Earl of Pembroke, Thomas Wade, etc.] 
Lord De la Warr, Robert Viscount 



ENGLAND, JUNE — DECEMBER, 1609 105 

July 5, Zuiiiga wrote to the King of Spain a letter about 
the Virginia business in which he says that Lord De la 
Warr's expedition had been put off until the spring, and 
that the members of the Council of Virginia were following 
the instructions of Sir Walter Ralegh, with other things 
relative to Virginia, including a chart of the country which 
has not been found. 

The preparation for Lord De la Warr's voyage con- 
tinued ; but few of the particulars have been preserved. 
Andrew Buckler, of Wyke-Regis, who had been to Virginia, 
was getting ready to go again, and Sir Richard Morrison 
proposed to Cecil to allow " the Irish pirates " to be em- 
ployed in that plantation. 

November 7, Henry Hudson in the Half-Moon, a Dutch 
ship, arrived at Dartmouth from the coast of Virginia and 
from Hudson's river. 

About November 21, Captain Samuel Argall returned 
from his voyage to South Virginia, and two days thereafter 
Zuniga made his report on this voyage to his king, telKng 
him that " those here who maintain that colony wait for 
some of the ships that are over there to return here and 
then, I think, they will send more," etc. 

Early in December, the remnant of " Sir Thomas Gates 
his fleet," reached England, with Captain John Smith and 
full reports showing conclusively that the colony had been 
found in a most deplorable condition in August, 1609, and 
had been left in but little better. The supplies carried 
over by the fleet had been destroyed or damaged by salt 
water during the tempest, and wasted after landing ; the 
colony had been left without sufficient ammunition, provi- 
sion, or comforts of any kind — with a terrible disease (the 
yellow fever, or London plague, or both) raging at James- 
town. The colonists were at war with the Indians, and 
" the Indian was as fast killing them without the fort as 
the famine and pestilence within ; " the legal governor had 
not arrived, and so far as was then known never would. 
" The hand of God was heavy on the enterprise," and " the 



106 UNDER THE COMPANY 

hand of God reacheth all the earth ; who can avoid it, or 
dispute with Him ? " 

" The letters of discouragement and the bad reports " 
brought by these ships " caused many of the adventurers 
to withdraw themselves in despaire of the enterprise : " and 
the work was afterwards carried forward in England by a 
comparatively small number of " Constant Adventurers." 
" Notwithstanding it lessened much the preparations, yet 
it hindred not the resolution of that honourable Lord (ap- 
pointed Lord Governour) the Lord La Warre, to goe in 
his own person," etc. 

The return of this fleet marks the beginning of the real 
crucial period of our earliest history. In the first stage 
the adventurers and planters had been sustained by hopes 
of a ready way to the Pacific Ocean and to East India, of a 
favorable cHmate in Virginia, of gold, silver, copper, iron, 
and other present profits, and these hopes had been fanned 
from time to time with promises of fulfillment, but they 
had not been realized ; while the dangers and difficulties 
by sea and by land, in England, e7i route, and in Virginia, 
were now too well understood to be dissembled, and dissatis- 
fied planters began to desert Virginia whenever they could, 
and disappointed adventurers to withdraw from the com- 
pany, refusing to pay their dues, — " by whose unconstancie 
the hope of that Plantation, together with the lives of our 
people there, had then utterly perished, had not God's 
secret purpose been more strongly fixed to uphold the 
same." 

Those " constant adventurers," " who were never dis- 
couraged, nor withdrew themselves from weekly Courts 
and meetings, yielding their purses, credit and Counseil, 
from time to time, to make new supplies even beyond their 
proportion to uphold the Plantation," ^ and those " faithful 
planters " who remained in, and who afterwards went to, 
Virginia regardless of all diseases and disasters, — these 
men who remained true to the enterprise and continued to 

1 The Genesis of United States, vol. ii. p. 776. 



ENGLAND, JUNE — DECEMBER, 1609 107 

aid in carrying the movement surely on to final success, 
were the real founders of the new nation in the New 
World, and not those who failed to continue in the under- 
taking in the time of its greatest need. 

The honors are due to those patriots who devoted their 
lives to carrying on the work ; who fought the battle ; who 
fell on the field ; who finally won the victory, and who, 
regardless of the expense, criticism, and traduction then 
meted out to them, laid the foundation of the new repubhc 
in America which is now a blessing to their posterity. 



IV 

VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609 — JUNE, 1610 

CAPTAIN GEORGE PERCY, PRESIDENT OF THE KING'S COUNCIL 
TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST GOVERNOR UNDER THE 
COMPANY, SIR THOMAS GATES, IN JUNE, 1610 

Percy, who still suffered from the malaria during the 
sickly season, was not well when Smith was deposed from 
the Council, and, at first, in regard of his sickness, refused 
the principal place of government ; but upon Ratcliffe, Ar- 
cher, and Martin promising to undergo the chiefest offices 
and bm-then of government for him until he recovered, he 
at length accepted the place. Martin had then returned 
to Jamestown, and West returned from the Falls about 
October 12, at which time the frost had tempered " the 
sickness of the country ; " but the colonists continued to 
suffer from the plague, or some other pestilence. 

About this time Captain John Ratcliffe was sent to raise 
a fortification on Point Comfort, and Captain James Davis 
and Master Davis arriving in the long lost pinnace, the Vir- 
ginia, of North Virginia, with " some 16 proper men," on 
October 13, were added to Captain Ratcliffe's company. 
This was the first fort built on Old Point Comfort (near the 
present site of Fortress Monroe) ; it was named by President 
Percy, " Algernoune Fort," for William de Percy, the 
founder of the family in England. He came over with 
William the Conqueror (being in high favor with him), in 
1066, from the village of Percy, near Villedieu ; his sur- 
name was Algernoune (or Alsgernons, William with the 
whiskers). He went on the first crusade (1096) and, being 
taken ill, sustained himself until he reached Mount Joy, the 
celebrated eminence whence the Pilgrims of the Cross first 
viewed the Holy City ; beheld Jerusalem, and then died. 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609 — JUNE, 1610 109 

The Diamond, Falcon, Blessing, Unitie, and Lion, sailed 
from Virginia about October 14, 1609, taking Captain John 
Smith, who had been on board ship for about twenty days ; 
about thirty of those unruly youths sent from England in 
the fleet, as they were not wanted in Virginia ; letters from 
Ratcliffe and others; accounts of the condition of the colony, 
the loss of the Sea Adventure, etc. The Swallow and the 
Virginia were left in the colony to procure them " victuals 
whereof they were exceedingly much in need." There were 
then remaining in Virginia less than 250 people, who were 
at war with the Indians and in want of ammunition. The 
hand of God was heavy on the colony, and the hand of 
God reacheth all the earth. " Who can avoid it, or dispute 
with him ? " Still his hands are always the best hands, 
and it was always for the best that our destiny was in his 
hands. 

Juan Corbe, the Frenchman, who had lost his native lan- 
guage and could speak only Indian, was by continued prac- 
tice with Juan Rodriquez enabled to recover somewhat his 
native speech, and on the first day of the return voyage of 
the Spaniards to St. Augustine was able to tell the captain 
what " he had heard from the Indians about the Enolish 
settlement." H* said that three Indians, from Guamuy- 
hurta and Quixos, who had been there, told him that the 
English had built a fort of wood, and that the settlement 
consisted of wooden houses ; that the Eng^lish had two bio; 
ships mounted with artillery, as if they were castles for the 
guard of the fort, and two more as guards and sentries 
for the bar at the mouth of the river, without mentioning 
others that kept coming and going ; " and that there came 
every year from England a ship loaded with provisions and 
ammunitions." 

August 4 and 5, Tuesday and Wednesday, they encoun- 
tered a fierce tempest ; there blew from the southeast such 
a gale, the sea ran so high, that they were unable to right 
the ship and were compelled to scud under bare masts 
" and commend ourselves to the mercy of God." This was 



110 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the same tempest which the fleet of the Virginia Company 
encountered at the same time. The old style (EngHsh) St. 
James Day (July 25), at this time, came ten days too soon. 
And it was this constantly growing discrepancy in the dates 
of the holidays which was one of the reasons why Pope 
Gregory XIII. deemed it so important to have the calendar 
altered in 1582, so as thereafter to have uniform and cor- 
rect dates. 

They had a very hard time beating their way back 
against wind and current. On August 15, while at Cape 
San Roman (Cape Fear), " they commended themselves to 
our Lady of Consolation, promising Her a procession in Her 
honor, vowing Her a Mass and Vespers, and praying to Her 
that she would send favorable winds. And lo ! just before 
day the next morning the wind by God's mercy set in from 
the North." Still they were five days reaching the river 
Jordan, where the same Indian repeated the same story as 
formerly told about the English. And " the Spaniards com- 
paring his distances with their maps [which placed the 
colony at about 37° 30' north latitude] found that they 
were right." 

August 28, while in the Bay of Cayugua (Charleston, 
S. C), another Indian told the captain through the French- 
man that he had been " in the settlement of the English, 
where there lived many people, and that they had a fort." 
But when Maria de Miranda questioned him, he denied 
having seen the English, said he did not say so, and that 
the Frenchman had lied. The Frenchman insisted that he 
did say so, and finally the captain put the Indian in 
shackles, " so that we might see what time would bring 
about." On the next day the Indian said that he had been 
to the English and did tell the Frenchman as stated ; that 
he had afterwards denied partly through fear and partly be- 
cause he thought " they had asked him about another fteople 
living in an inland place called Guatan [Croatan ?], of 
whom they had intelligence. Further questioned what 
people that was, he answered that they were Spaniards [the 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609 — JUNE, 1610 111 

coast Indians sometimes called any European a Spaniard], 
and that they had negroes with them. Being asked many 
questions on this point and others, he begged not to be 
questioned any further for the present, adding that if they 
would let him alone he would search his memory." 

September 4, the captain engaged Alonso and two other 
Indians to go to the English settlement, notice everything, 
and report to him within fifty days at St. Augustine. " And 
the Indian Alonso will keep his promise, because he is a 
Christian," that is, a Roman Catholic. 

They spent more than a month coming down the coast 
treating the Indians, talking with them about the English 
settlement, and probably inciting them against it. Sep- 
tember 20, when at the village of Yoa, they heard mass 
by Father Fr. Juan, who had come down from his Indian 
mission to see Captain Ecija. They returned to St. Augus- 
tine on September 24, " with Infinite thanks to God for- 
ever and ever more." On October 15, " the christianized 
Indian Alonso," with five other Indians, reached St. Augus- 
tine and reported that he had gone five days to the north- 
ward ; but had been forced to return by the Indians at 
" Guano." The governor then engaged other Indians to 
repeat the attempt, and report in seventy - three days. 
November 15, " the christianized Indian Alonso," having 
received many presents, left St. Augustine, promising the 
governor to make another attempt and " to bring back 
whatever positive news he may have gathered." 

The report of these things was sent by Pedro de Ybarra, 
the governor of Florida, to the king of Spain about the 
last of November, and probably reached him in January, 
1610. The exaggerated account of the strength of the 
EngHsh settlement, so near to the Gulf Stream, which was 
the route of the Spanish fleets on the return from the Span- 
ish settlements in America, was discouraging ; yet its ac- 
curacy must have been called in question by the reports 
received by the king from England. On the other hand 
the difficulty of sailing the route from Virginia to the West 



112 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Indies, although not unknown to the Spaniards before, must 
have been grateful to them. 

The impression made on my mind is that the Indians 
from up the " Rio Jordan " (which in this instance was the 
Pedee) really knew something about the English settlement, 
and that they were giving the Spaniards exaggerated and 
misleading accounts for some purpose. These Indians, and 
the Monacans above the Falls of James River, belonged 
to the same Siouan tribes of the East. They generally 
gave to the Spaniards, as their informants, the Indians of 
the " Doxe " settlement, " four days Journey north " of the 
Pedee River. This may have had reference to the " Dogi " 
of Lederer, or to the " Dusge-owa," — as the Tuscaroras 
were sometimes called, — to which nation the Monacans 
are said to have belon^ed.^ The Roman Catholic Church 
had missions among these Siouan tribes in Georgia and 
South Carolina. The Spaniards traded with and seem to 
have been on friendly terms with those along the coast 
at least as far north as Cape San Roman. " The christian- 
ized Indians " who left St. Augustine on October 20 for 
Virginia should have reached the neighborhood of James- 
town in November, and they may have been instrumental 
in farther incensing the Virginia Indians against the colo- 
nists,^ during the winter of 1609-1610. The influence 
of Roman CathoHcs over the Indians probably extended 
beyond Virginia, and that the Spaniards were willing to 
exert that influence against the effort for securing a part 
of the New World for Protestantism cannot be questioned. 

In December, 1609, Captain Ratcliffe in the Virginia 
and Captain West in the Swallow, with about twenty-five 
or thirty men each, went to truck for corn with the Indians. 
Ratcliffe left his pinnace in the river, and with sixteen men 

^ See Bulletin No. 22 (Bureau of of Alonso) to St. Augustine, and I 

Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution) have found no other reports in the 

The Siouan Tribes of the East, by premises ; but this one is sufficient 

James Mooney. to show that the English colonists had 

^ The report ends before the time to contend against the influence of 

for their return (and for the return Spain in America, as well as in Europe. 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609— JUNE, 1610 113 

in his barge landed at Werowoeomoco in the Pamunkey 
River. While loading his barge with corn the Indians led 
him into an ambnsh (in which Alonso may have aided), 
killed him and all those with him save William Russell and 
Jeffery Shortridge (who escaped to Jamestown by land), 
and took his barge. The pinnace and nine men returned 
emjDty to Algernoune Fort. West was more successful in 
obtaining corn, but instead of returning to Jamestown, 
determined to go to England with the ship, which he did 
about January 2, 1610, and after cruising about for some 
time finally landed at Lyme in England in June, 1610. 

Percy says that one month of the winter of 1609-1610 
was as cold as it was during the severe winter of 1607-1608, 
when " more than half died." The state of affairs in Vir- 
ginia was deplorable. The Indians refused to trade ; as 
a matter of fact they always lived from hand to mouth, 
seldom raised more than enough for their own use, and had 
not much victual for trade at any time. But they were 
now waging a war of extermination against the English, in 
which they were probably aided by the Southern tribes, 
under the instigation of the Spaniards, as well as by other 
most favorable circumstances — the famine and pestilence 
killing the colonists as fast within the walls of Jamestown 
as the Indians were without. From October 14, 1609, 
to June 20, 1610, about 150 (including Captain Gabriel 
Archer) thus perished, the death rate being almost as 
great as during the first fearful seasoning time — July- 
October, 1607. 

We have not the exact date, but judging from circum- 
stances it was about this time that Virginia Laydon was 
born, who was probably the first fruit of the first English 
Protestant marriage in the New World, her mother being 
a maid and her father a carpenter. The event, it seems, 
received consideration from the Virmnia courts of 1632 in 
a grant of 500 acres of land to John Laydon ; but it has 
received no recognition in our histories. Virginia Dare, 
the first child born of English parents in America, was born 



114 UNDER THE COMPANY 

on Eoanoke Island (North Carolina) in 1587. With this 
fact her history begins and ends, yet her memory has been 
kept ever green by the people of North Carolina. And 
there is no reason why Virginians should not take a like 
interest in Virginia Laydon, whose name has never been 
honored in song or story. 

The Sea Adventure, under command of Captain Newport, 
vice-admiral of Virginia (with Sir Thomas Gates, governor, 
and Sir George Somers, admiral ; " with several commis- 
sions sealed, successively to take place one after another, 
considering the mortality and uncertainty of human life ") 
was driven by " the Tempest " for several days. On 
Thursday night (August 6) Sir George Somers, who sat 
upon the poop of the ship guiding her, saw " an apparition 
of a little round light, like a faint Starre, trembling and 
streaming along with a sparkling blaze, halfe the height 
upon the Maine Mast ; and shooting sometimes from shroud 
to shroud, . . . running sometimes along the Maine-yard 
to the very end, and then returning." ^ 

On the next day (August 7) they were wrecked (but 
" not a hair perished ") on " the still-vex'd Bermoothes," 
" which be called commonly. The Devils Hands." ^ 

The celebrated poet and divine, John Donne, had sought 
the appointment from the company as " Secretary in Vir- 
ginia ; " but that office was given to William Strachey, 
another author and poet, who was also on this ship and 

^ Prospero. " Hast thou, spirit, 

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee ? 
Ariel. " To every article. 

I boarded the Kingh ship ; now on the beak, 
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 
I flam'd amazement : Sometimes, I 'd divide, 
And burn in many places ; on the top-mast, 
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly. 

The most mighty Neptune 
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble, 
Yea, his dread trident shake." — The Tempest, Act I., so. 2. 

2 « Hell is empty 
And all the Devils are here ! " — Ibid. 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609— JUNE, 1610 115 

wrote the account of the tempest, published in Purchas.* 
In this connection it is especially interesting to note that 
a special supervision over the necessary change in the form 
of government in the colony, and the directions, orders, 
and instructions for regulating the same, had been given 
to the foUovdng friends of Shakespeare, namely, Henry, 
Earl of Southampton (his early patron) ; William, Earl of 
Pembroke, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery (to whom the 
great folio Shakespeare of 1623 was dedicated) ; Robert, 
Viscount Lisle (Sir Philip Sidney's brother) ; Theophilus, 
Lord Howard of Walden ; Edmond, Lord Sheffield, and 
George, Lord Carew of Clopton, who married in 1580 
Joyce Clopton, to whom the Clopton estates ultimately 
passed, and from which estate Shakespeare bought in 1597 
the house in which he died in 1616. 

Save for the tempest this ship should have arrived 
in Virginia (with the vessels which Ariel had dispersed) in 
August, 1609, and the change to the new government 
would have taken place under more favorable circum- 
stances ; but nothing could be clearer to my mind than 
that destiny was in every disaster shaping our end from the 
first. As in nature it was best for the nation to be tem- 
pered in birth with severe travails, and it was so ; but 
" God, who moves in a misterious way his wonders to per- 
form," had so strongly fixed his secret purpose to uphold 
the plantation in the minds of many undaunted spirits that 
they were not discouraged by any disaster from continu- 
ing the work to the inspired end. 

September 11, Governor Gates sent master's mate Henry 
Ravens, cape-merchant Thomas Whittingham, and from six 
to twelve others (accounts differ), in the longboat, as a 
" Bark of Aviso," to Virginia with letters to the colony and 
a particular commission confirming Captain Peter Wynne as 
his lieutenant-governor in Virginia. The boat never reached 
Virginia. 

December 6, Thomas Powell was married to Ehzabeth 
Persons. 

1 Vol. iv. pp. 1734-1757. 



116 UNDER THE COMPANY 

February 21, 1610, John Kolfe's infant daughter was 
christened Bermuda by Rev. Richard Bucke. William 
Strachey, Christopher Newport, and Mistress Horton were 
godparents. The child soon died. 

April 4, Edward Eason's infant son was christened Ber- 
mudas by Rev. Mr. Bucke. Strachey, Newport, and James 
Swift were godfathers. This child lived to reach Virginia. 

Strachey and others give long accounts of the events on 
the Bermudas, the trials of the non-conformists Nicholas 
Bennet, John Want, Stephen Hopkins ; the mutinies, etc. 
He tells of feeding on young " sea-meawes," that live " like 
conies in a warren." ^ 

On September 7, 1609, Richard Frobisher began build- 
ing a large pinnace of eighty tons, called the Deliverance. 
December 7, Sir George Somers began to build a smaller one 
of thirty tons, called the Patience. Both were completed 
before May 11, 1610, when they were ready to sail for Vir- 
ginia, and waiting for a wind. On Thursday, May 20, they 
set sail for Virginia, and the Patience (" whose help they 
had sought ") and the Deliverance carried them along on 
" calm seas " and with " auspicious gales." 

Christopher Carter and Robert Waters were left on the 
island. Henry Paine had been executed ; JefPery Briars, 
Richard Lewis, William Hitchman, Bermuda Rolfe, and a 
sailor had died there, and from eight to fourteen had gone 
out to sea in the longboat. The two vessels left the island 
with about 140 emigrants for Virginia. On Monday, May 
31, they came before Algernoune Fort on Point Comfort, 
where they found Captain James Davies (or Davis) in com- 
mand, and Captain George Percy, the President of the 
Council, was at that time likewise in the fort. From these 
they heard " the heavie news of the condition of the people 
above at Jamestown." 

" From hence in two days (only by the help of Tydes, 
no wind stirring) we plyed it sadly up the River, and the 

1 Caliban. « 1 '11 get thee 

Young sea-mells from the rock : Wilt thou go with me ? " 

The Tempest, Act II., sc. 2. 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609 — JUNE, 1610 117 

three and twentieth of May [June 2, n. s.] we cast Anchor 
before James Towne, where we landed, and our much grieved 
Governour first visiting the church caused the Bell to be 
rung, at which (all such as were able to come forth of their 
houses) repayred to church where our Minister Master 
Bucke made a zealous and sorrowfull Prayer, finding all 
things so contrary to our expectation, so full of misery and 
mis government. After service our Governour caused me 
[Strachey] to read his commission, and Captaine Percy 
(then President) delivered up unto him his [the old Royal] 
commission, the Old Patent, and the Councell Scale." 

They then went out to view the fort, and Strachey repre- 
sents everything as being in a most dilapidated condition ; 
for which " he blamed men and freed the country." This 
was for the best interest of the enterprise then ; but the 
country is all right now, and it is now the duty of the his- 
torian to be just ; to free the memory of these men, and to 
tell the truth about the original climate, and all the other 
difficulties which they had to contend with, regardless of 
the motives, personal or public, for concealing any matters 
at that time. 

On the arrival of Gates with the new commission the 
period of the first royal government in Virginia definitely 
ended. The various accounts bearing on this period, writ- 
ten between 1607 and 1657, would fill volumes ; but after 
1611, for various reasons, many of them are misleading. 
The general disposition was to magnify the work accom- 
plished while the colony was actually under the king's form 
of government (1607-1609), and to place (with impunity) 
the burden of responsibility for past disasters on the period 
of indefinite government, — that is, on the period of this 
chapter, when it was known in Virginia that a new charter 
had been granted and new officers commissioned, who 
might arrive at any time ; which fact impaired the authority 
so much as to make it amount almost to a lack of leg-al 
government, and the period one of non-responsibihty, espe- 
cially adapted for laying blame upon. 



118 UNDER THE COMPANY 

What is known in history as " the starving time in Vir- 
ginia " is generally stated to have begun after Captain 
Smith left ; but it really began during his presidency in the 
spring of 1609, and (save for the temporary relief afforded 
by ArgaU in July and the arrival of the fleet in August) 
continued until the arrival of Gates. It was one of the 
most disastrous periods in the life of the colony. It was 
at no time a period of prosperity. 

Of the thirteen members of the King's Council in Vir- 
ginia during 1607-1609, Smith and Wingfield went back 
to England and never served in Virginia under the popular 
charters ; Newport, Martin, Percy, and West continued in 
the service of the company. Gosnold, Kendall, Scrivener, 
Waldo, and Wynne had died in Virginia before the change 
took place. Archer and Ratcliffe were retained in the ser- 
vice, but had recently died in Virginia. They had been 
among "the planters" who petitioned for the change in the 
charter, the first American patriots to protest against a 
royal form of government in this country ; and therefore 
they have appeared in our royal histories as " agitators who 
effected by intrigue what they had failed to accomphsh by 
force," as " enemies of Capt. John Smith," etc. Why was 
it that all of the Council in Virginia, who lived any length 
of time, became " the enemies of Capt. John Smith " ? 
Why is it that so many of those who left their testimony 
with their lives on the sacred soil of the old Dominion have 
defamatory or unhonored records in our histories, while 
Smith, who returned to England before the victory was 
won, remained there and died there, is lauded in song and 
story ? Is not the testimony of those who died on the field 
of honor and of action as worthy of our belief as that of 
those who published the dispatches ? Are not the voices 
from our unknown graves as worthy of our respect as those 
from distant sepulchres ? The answers to these questions, in 
the personal issue, will be found in the fact that those who 
take the view of Smith's history then licensed by the crown 
oppose these men because they were enemies of Smith, or as 



VIRGINIA, OCTOBER, 1609— JUNE, 1610 119 

being opponents of the king's form of government in Vir- 
ginia ; while those who look from the standpoint of the 
company records, then concealed by the Council, oppose 
Captain John Smith because he was the enemy of the mar- 
tyrs of our genesis, and an opponent of the formation of 
the first republic in America. 

Much depends on the point of view from which we look. 
It was as natural for Purchas to have no tears for these 
men as it is for me to defend them. Smith and Purchas 
are especially severe on Captain Archer ; they seldom allude 
to him without sneers and words of abuse ; Smith seems to 
resent, as a personal grievance, the fact that the gallant 
captain ever existed. I have studied his case carefully, and 
I believe it to be an historic disgrace that he should have 
been condemned by American historians solely on the evi- 
dence of his opponents. 



ENGLAND, DECEMBER, 1609 — AUGUST, 1610 

PBEPABATIONS FOB THE LABGE EXPEDITION STATED. DE 
LA WABB SENT TO THE BESCUE 

December 10, 1609, Zuniga sent Philip III. a report on 
the return of the fleet, which was received by him shortly 
before the report on Ecija's voyage from Florida. 

Within a few days after the sad return of the fleet, " the 
Counsel! of Virginia" published a broadside^ to offset the 
bad reports brought from Virginia, and to induce sundry 
" sufficient, honest and good artificers," doctors and divines 
to go to Virginia with " Lord de la Warr, who intendeth 
God assisting, to be ready with all expedition." And for 
the same purpose, on December 24, there was entered at 
Stationers' Hall for publication by John Stepney, under 
the hands of Lord De la Warr, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Wal- 
ter Cope, and Master Waterson, a tract giving " A True 
and Sincere declaration of the purpose and ends of the 
Plantation begun in Virginia of the degi-ees which it hath 
received ; and meanes by which it hath been advanced : and 
the resolution and conclusion of His Majesties Councel 
of that Colony for the constant and patient prosecution 
thereof, untill by the mercies of God it shall retribute a 
fruitful harvest to the Kingdome of heaven, and this Com- 
mon - Wealth^ ^ In an appendix they caU for the same 
class of emigrants as in their broadside of a few days 
before, and in their previous call for the fleet in February, 
1609. 

^ See The Genesis of the United ^ The Genesis of the United 'States, 
States, pp. 354-356. This broadside pp. 337-353. 
preceded the Tract, ibid., pp. 337-353. 



ENGLAND, DECEMBER, 1609 — AUGUST, 1610 121 

The contemporary ideas of the managers of this enter- 
prise are fully set out in " Nova Britannia," in this " True 
Declaration," in their various broadsides, and other prints 
and documents of sundry dates which still remain to show 
that their objects, aims, and ideas were beyond all fair- 
minded criticism, and that " the causes of the defailment 
were " not " only in the managing of the business," as 
stated by Smith. And to the same point their actions 
speak even clearer than their words, for under their man- 
agement, and under their popular charters, they accom- 
pHshed in due time their chief objects, regardless of all 
difficulties. Of course, " A True and Sincere Declaration " 
does not give out the bad reports from Virginia, nor the 
many discouragements in England, because it was pub- 
lished purposely to offset these things. 

The Council for Virginia gave Lord De la Warr " all the 
liberties and privileges which they had power to derive 
upon him," and hoped to be able to furnish out a fitting 
expedition for him by the last of January. 

December 31, the Spanish minister makes his report to 
his king on the Virginia enterprise, as well as on Ralegh's 
enterprise in Guiana. It is curious to note how quick this 
Spaniard was to gather English news. It was nine days 
after this when Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : " Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh hath a ship come from Guiana, richly laden, 
they say with gold ore ; and Sir Thomas Roe, with a ship 
and Pinnace is going that way to seek his fortune." 

January 28, 1610, Zuniga writes to his king : " Lord de 
la Warr with 300 men and large stores will certainly be 
sent from here at the beginning of April ; and somewhat 
later one thousand men will go, a fact which shows very 
clearly the advantages they hope to derive from over there, 
since with such very great losses as they have suffered, 
and of which I have informed your Majesty, they still 
show so much courao-e." 

It must be noted that the numbers sent out to Virginia 
as given to the public were generally exaggerated, but the 
object for this is evident. 



122 UNDER THE COMPANY 

February 24, 1610, the following debate took place in 
the House of Commons on the question whether a warrant 
be issued for the election of a new member in the place of 
Sir George Somers, then on a voyage to Virginia. Sir 
George Moore made the report of the committee of privi- 
leges ; their opinion was that Sir George Somers ought 
not to be removed ; it cited the " case of Ambassadors ; 
Disgrace : Injustice — If he return and challenge Privi- 
lege, upon arrest to be granted," etc. 

" Sir Geo. Moore [in the debate on the report] that Sir 
Geo. Sommers, not to be removed. No Disgrace ; but a 
grace to be a governor in Virginia. No injustice ; But In- 
justice to the Town and to this House. . . . Sir Geo. Som- 
mers Hke to Sir James Lee in Ireland. 

" Sir Tho. Holcroft. For his Remove. 

" Sir Edwyn Sandys [against his removal]. Answers 
the objections — Disgrace — Comparison with Ambassadors 

— Some Prejudice to the House to remove, without Prece- 
dent. Three causes of Remove : — 1 Disgrace — 2 Grace 

— 3. Sickness incurable. Case of Ambassadors — Three 
Differences : that foreign, this home : — No Magistracy, this 
Magistracy : This with a purpose of continuance, that not 
to continue long- : Presumed for his Life. A new Precedent : 
Done upon Deliberation. 

" Sir Nath. Bacon. Not to be removed. 
" Mr. Fuller. The End of Parliaments to have men 
present, that do represent. 

*^ Question. Whether a warrant for Sir George Som- 
mers — 

" A new to be elected." ^ 

The following entry is from the roll of that Parlia- 
ment : — 

" Lyme — Geo. Somers, Kt. — 
John Hassard, gent., 

in their places, deceased, 
Francis Russel, Kt. ) ifin " 
Geo. Jeffrys, Esq. j 

^ Commons Journal. 



ENGLAND, DECEMBER, 1609 — AUGUST, 1610 123 

The Kev. William Crasliaw, on March 3, ^' preached a 
sermon before the right honorable the Lord La Warre, 
Lord Governour and Captaine Generall of Virginia, and 
others of his Majesties Counsell for that kingdom, and the 
rest of the Adventurers in that plantation, at the said Lord 
Generall his leave taking of England his native country and 
departure for Virginia, wherein both the lawfulness of that 
action is maintained, and the necessity thereof is also 
demonstrated, not so much out of the grounds of j^olicy 
as of humanity, Equity and Christianity." Li this sermon 
(on p. 32) he refers to " M. Simonds his sermon," which had 
been previously printed. Crashaw's sermon was soon pub- 
lished, and dedicated to the members of Parliament, and 
these two sermons remain to show us the views of these two 
ministers on the American question at that time. 

Lord De la Warr's commission as lord governor and 
captain-general of Virginia during the term of his natural 
life, with principal authority both by land. and sea over the 
said colony, etc., was sealed by his Majesty's Council for 
the company on March 10, 1610. His authority in Vir- 
ginia was to be most absolute. Before sailino- he had a 
consultation with Cecil. He carried with him a list of 
" Virginia Comodities " which still remains to show her 
staple products at that time ; but he hoped to find mines 
also. 

March 11, Zuiiiga wrote to his king " within three weeks 
Lord de la Ware will sail for Viro^inia. He takes three 
ships laden with supplies, and also a hundred old soldiers, 
good people [artisans], and a few knights. Two months 
later four more ships will follow him, with a larger number 
of people. 

." May our Lord guard the Catholic Person of Your Maj- 
isty as all Christendom needeth." 

The ships really left London a day or so after ; but they 
did not sail from the coast of England (the Cowes) until 
April 11. 

Between the 9th and 11th of April Zuniga set out for 



124 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Spain in person with information for his king, and his 
place in England as ambassador for Spain was filled by 
Don Alonso de Velasco. At the same time Sir John 
Digby represented England at the court of Spain. The 
marriage between England and Spain had long been dallied 
with. Both governments were now preparing to play the 
game more seriously, and Virginia was still one of the 
stakes.^ 

In January, 1610, the Dutch East India Company ordered 
Henry Hudson to return to Holland ; but the English gov- 
ernment commanded him and other Englishmen with him 
not to leave England, but to serve their own country in 
matters of that kind. On April 18, he sailed from Lon- 
don in the Discovery on a voyage to discover the North- 
west Passage. These voyages were now to be separate 
from, but auxiliary to, the colonization of Virginia, and 
the enterprises were largely under the management of the 
same people. 

May 9, King James granted a patent for estabHshing a 
colony or colonies in Newfoundland. 

Through the influence of Robert Johnson, the deputy 
treasurer of the Virginia Company, the grocers of London 
were constant contributors to the enterprise. 

Early in June the Swallow (in which were Captain Francis 
West and others from Virginia) reached Lyme, and on the 
14th Velasco reported to his king the fact ; sent to him an 
account of the bad condition in which the colony con- 
tinued, and urged him to make an end of it altogether 
now that this was so easy to be done. 

On the same day that this report was made Prince 
Henry, the Patron of the Virginia Company of London, 
was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. The 
Dutch ambassadors were present at this creation, and dur- 
ing their stay in England promised Prince Henry to send 
him Sir Thomas Dale from the Netherlands for employ- 
ment in Virginia. 

^ See Birch's Life of Henry, Prince of Wales, pp. 531, 532. 



ENGLAND, DECEMBER, 1609 — AUGUST, 1610 125 

Notwithstanding the bad reports from Virginia, the 
patriot party were convinced of final success "if the 
colony were rightly ordered by some industrious person," 
and Wodenoth says that Dale was selected at the sugges- 
tion of Henry, Earl of Southampton, as being a most judi- 
cious person, for " the ability of his body as well as mind," 
for this task. Dale and Southampton had served under 
Essex, and Dale was " now a worthy and experienced soul- 
dier in the Low-Countreys," where he had been fighting 
against Spain. 

As soon as possible after the return ^ of the Swallow, 
the Dainty was sent to Virginia with twenty men and a 
year's competent supply of provisions for the whole colony. 
Captain Francis West possibly returned at this time. 

On September 1 Velasco received from Philip III. a 
letter written in July, enclosing a report on Virginia by 
Francis Maguel (or Maguer, or Maguire), an Irishman who 
had been there and who, like Arundell, now wished '^ to 
serve His Catholic Majesty " in aiding him to remove the 
colony. 

^ The accounts which remain rela- hearing his defense. He may really 
tive to this return of West in the have been sent for these needed sup- 
Swallow are fault-finding. There was plies. He may have acted for the 
evidently a motive for thus publicly best, for he evidently retained the 
laying the blame on him ; but it is not confidence of the company and col- 
just for us to condemn him without ony. 



VI 

VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, 1611 

SIR THOMAS GATES, GOVERNOR TO JUNE 20, 1610. LORD BE LA 
WARR, LORD GOVERNOR TO APRIL, 1611. CAPTAIN GEORGE 
PERCY, DEPUTY GOVERNOR TO MAY, 1611 

Governor Gates at once told the colonists that if he 
should not find it possible to supply them with something 
for their support from the country by the endeavors of 
his able men, he would make ready and transport them all 
into their native country. June 3, he established certain 
laws, orders, and instructions, which he enjoined them 
strictly to observe, during the time that he should stay 
amongst them, which being written out fair were set up 
upon a post in the church for every one to take notice of. 
They were the first " published laws," and were intended 
for " the inorguration of order and government " in the 
colony.^ 

After making trial of " all the wayes " for relieving the 
colony, and after consultation with his Council, on or 
before June 11 Governor Gates reached the conclusion 
that there was no way before him save to abandon the 
colony ; sent the Virginia down to Algernoune Fort to 
take on Captain Davis and his men, while he began making 
preparations for leaving Jamestown. " Our governor having 
caused to be carried aboard all the arms, and all the best 
things in the store ; having buried the ordnances before 
the Fort gate ; having appointed to every pinnace likewise 
his complement and number and delivered thereunto a pro- 
portionable rate of provision, on June 17th commanded 
every man at the beating of the Drum to repair aboard. 

^ See Force's Tracts, vol. iii., no. ii., pp. 9-19. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, 1611 127 

And because he would preserve the Towne (albeit now to 
be quitted) unburned, which some intemperate and mali- 
cious people threatened, he caused his own Company (which 
he had brought from the Netherlands, under the command 
of his Lieutenant, Capt. George Yeardley,) to be last ashore, 
and was himself the last of them to get aboard, when about 
noon giving a farewell, with a peal of small shot, they set 
sail in the Discovery, the Deliverance and the Patience." 
That night they fell down with the tide to Hogg Island, 
and the next morning the tide brought them to Mulberry 
Island, where they met the Virginia, in which Lord De la 
Warr had sent Captain Edward Brewster, with letters to 
Sir Thomas Gates, instructing him to return to Jamestown. 
" And Gates the very next day, to the great grief of all his 
company (only except Captain John Martin), as wind and 
weather gave leave, returned his whole company with charge 
to take possession again of those poor ruinated habitations 
at Jamestown which he had formerly abandoned. Himself 
in a boat proceeded downward to meet his Lordship, who 
making all speed up, arrived shortly after at James Towne." 

On the arrival of Gates, June 2, 1610, with the new 
commission, the period of the royal government ended ; but, 
as the colony was then in no condition to be benefited by 
the change, it seems more just to begin the establishment 
of the new order of things in Virginia, with the arrival of 
Lord De la Warr on June 20, 1610. 

In June, 1609, Lord De la Warr intended leaving Eng- 
land for Virginia as soon as he heard of the safe arrival 
there of Sir Thomas Gates ; but the news brought back by 
Argall and by the remnant of the fleet in November and 
December, 1609, " caused such a coldness here at home," 
the money came in so slowly, " that he could not be dis- 
patched 'till the colony was worne and spent with diffi- 
culties." 

Lord De la Warr left London about March 12, 1610, 
and sailed from " the Cowes " on April 11, in the De la 
Warr, accompanied with the Blessing, of Plymouth, and 



128 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the Hercules, of Rye, with supplies for the colony and 
about one hundred and fifty emigrants, being for the most 
part artificers,^ — including Frenchmen to plant vines, and 
" Wm. Henrick Faldoe, a Swiss," to find mines, — accom- 
panied by "Knights and gentlemen of quality." The 
fleet, under " the conduct of Capt. Argall by sea," reached 
Terceira (the Azores) on April 22. At night, on June 15, 
they came to an anchor at Cape Henry. The next day 
the Hercules, which had been separated from the other 
ships near eight weeks, joined them, and that night they 
" came to an ancor under Cape Comfort where," as De la 
Warr wrote Cecil, " I met with such cold comfort, as if it 
had not been accompanied with the most happy news of 
Sir Thomas Gates his arrival it had been sufficient to have 
broke my hart and to have made mee altogether unable to 
have done my King or country any service." 

He found at the point the Virginia, which had been 
sent from Jamestown about June 11, to take aboard Cap- 
tain James Davis and the garrison of the fort there. 
June 17, De la Warr caused this pinnace to be manned, 
and sent Captain Edward Brewster in her with letters to 
Sir Thomas Gates, with " newes of their arrivall." 

Brewster met Gates at Mulberry Island on June 18, who, 
upon the receipt of the letters, ordered his ships " to bear 
up the helm" for Jamestown, where all of his men re-landed 
that night. 

Lord De la Warr reached Jamestown with his ships on 
Sunday, June 20, 1610, and in the afternoon went ashore, 
with Sir Ferdinando Wenman, landing at the south gate 
of the palisado (fronting the river) ; Sir Thomas Gates 
caused his company in arms to stand in order and make a 
guard, William Strachey acting on this special occasion as 
color-bearer. As soon as the lord governor landed, he 
fell upon his knees before them all, and made a long and 
silent prayer to God. Then arising, he marched up into 
the town, Strachey bowing with the colors as he entered 

^ See The Genesis of the United States, pp. 353-356. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, 1611 129 

the gate, and let them fall at his lordship's feet, who passed 
on into the chapel, where he heard a sermon by Rev. Rich- 
ard Buck (" Sir Thomas Gates his preacher "), and after 
that caused his ensign, Anthony Scott, to read his commis- 
sion, which intituled him " Lord Governor, and Captaine 
Generall during his life, of the Colony and Plantation in 
Virginia (Su' Thomas Gates our Governor hitherto, being 
now stiled therein Lieutenant General)," upon which Sir 
Thomas Gates delivered up to his lordship " his owne com- 
mission, both patents and the counsell scale." 

The lord governor then delivered some few words of 
reproach, warning, advice, and good cheer. 

" Of 775 people " sent before him in 1606-1609, he found 
only about 200, almost bare of supplies. As about 135 of 
these had but recently arrived with Gates, which with the 
150 brought by himself made near 280 unacclimated peo- 
ple, and as the sickly season was fast approaching, he was 
soon to see for himself the real cause of the great mortality 
in Virginia. 

The fort was in the form of a triangle, the side facing 
the river being 420 feet, and the other two sides 300 feet 
long. At each angle a bulwark or watch-tower was raised, 
and in each bulwark a piece or two of ordnance was well 
mounted. On each side, at an equal distance from the pal- 
isades, was a settled street of houses, " running along so as 
each line of the angle had its street." In the midst w^ere a 
market-place, a storehouse, a " corps-du-guarde," and a pretty 
chapel, all which the lord governor ordered to be put in 
good repair. The chapel was in length 60 feet, in breadth 
24, and the lord governor had it repaired with a chancel 
of cedar and a communion-table of black walnut; "all the 
pews and the pulpit were of cedar, with fair broad windows, 
also of cedar, to shut and open, as the weather shall occa- 
sion." The font was " hewen hollow like a canoa," and 
there were two bells in the steeple at the west end. " The 
Church was so cast, as to be very light within and the 
Lord Governor caused it to be kept passing sweet and 



130 UNDER THE COMPANY 

trimmed up with divers flowers." There was a sexton in 
charge of the church, and every morning at the ringing of 
a bell by him, about ten o'clock, each man addressed him- 
self to prayers, and so at four of the clock before supper. 
There were a sermon every Thursday and two sermons 
every Sunday, the two preachers taking their weekly turns. 
" Every Sunday, when the Lord Governor went to church 
he was accompanied with all the Councillors, Captains, other 
officers, and all the gentlemen, and with a guard of fifty 
Halberdiers in his Lordships Livery, fair red cloaks, on each 
side and behind him. The Lord Governor sat in the choir, 
in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion before him 
on which he knelt, and the council, captains, and officers, 
sat on each side of him, each in their place, and when the 
Lord Governor returned home, he was waited on in the 
same manner to his house." 

Their houses as yet were in no great uniformity, but 
were comfortable, with large country chimneys, and, having 
an abundance of wood, they maintained large fires. And 
as Strachey said, although they had no wanton city orna- 



ments, — 



" We dwell not here to build us bowers, 
And Halls for pleasure and good cheere : 
But Halls we build for us and ours, 
To dwell in them whilst we live here." 

The palisades were made of strong plank and strong 
posts, the latter being set "four foote deepe in the ground." 

June 21, the sailors were set to work at unloading the 
ships, and the landsmen at cleaning the town, making coal 
for the forges, etc. 

June 22, the lord governor and captain-general organ- 
ized the government of the colony, under the charter to 
the company, which it was deemed best to make as strong 
and as absolute, in the beginning, as possible. And the 
" Articles, Lawes and Orders, Divine, Politique and Martial 
for the colony in Virginia," which had been first estab- 
lished by Sir Thomas Gates on June 3, were now exempli- 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, 1611 131 

fied and approved. These were really the first written laws 
of the colony, the former government having been " an 
aristocratic one," the law and the execution thereof being 
subject to the personal ideas or interest of the majority (or, 
at times, of the president only) of the Council, — the colo- 
nists, without written laws, being like sailors at sea with- 
out a chart to guide them, at the mercy of the elements 
above them. These laws furnished the colonists with a 
guide for their conduct, "and took away the plea of / 
did not knoio."" Almost any sort of definite law is better 
for a people than no law, and, although many of these laws 
seem most unreasonable to us now, there was doubtless 
some reason for all of them then, since which tune ideas 
have changed very much. For instance, there was a severe 
penalty against throwing soapsuds in the open street. This 
was because at that time it was thought in London that 
" not only soap-boilers and vendors of it, but all the wash- 
erwomen and all they whose business it was to use soap — 
nay, they who only wore shirts washed with soajj — j^r^es- 
ently died of the Plague.''^ 

On the same day the lord governor elected unto himself 
a Council, and constituted and gave places of office and 
charge to divers captains and gentlemen, unto all of whom 
he administered an oath of faith, assistance, and secrecy, 
" mixed with the oath of Allegiance and Supremacy to his 
Majesty." The Council were : Sir Thomas Gates, lieuten- 
ant-general ; Sir George Somers, admiral ; Captain George 
Percy, esquire (and, in the fort, captain of fifty) ; Sir Ferdi- 
nando Weinman, master of the ordnance ; Captain Christo- 
pher Newport, vice-admiral ; and William Strachey, esquire, 
secretary and recorder. The other officers were : Captain 
John Martin, master of the battery works for steel and iron ; 
Captain George Webb, sergeant-major of the fort; captains 
of companies, Edward Brewster (of the lord governor's 
own company), Thomas Lawson, Thomas Holcroft, Samuel 
Argall, and George Yeardley (who commanded the lieu- 
tenant-general's company). Among the other officers were : 



132 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Master Ralph Hamor and Master Browne, clerks of the 
Council, and Master Daniel Tucker and Master Robert 
Wilde, clerks of the store. Master Anthony Scott was 
ensign of Lord De la Warr's company. 

Dr. Lawrence Bohun, Rev. William Mease (or Mays), 
Richard Kingsmill, Jane, daughter of William Pierce and 
third wife of John Rolfe, William JuHan, Joan Chandler, 
and Reynold Booth were of those who came to Virginia at 
this time. 

The first business the lord governor consulted his Coun- 
cil about was the obtaining of victuals, and in Council, on 
June 23, " it pleased Sir George Somers to propose a voy- 
age, which, for the better relief and good of the colony, he 
would perform, unto the Bermudas." On the 25th, the 
governor commissioned him to make the voyage ; and on 
the same day he wrote to the earl of Salisbury telhng him 
of the tempest, the Bermudas, and Virginia. 

June 27, Robert Tyndall, master of the De la Warr, was 
sent in the Virginia to fish about capes Henry and Charles. 

June 28, Captain Samuel Argall was sworn into the gov- 
ernor's Council, and on the next day sailed with Somers 
for the Bermudas. They stood off from Cape Henry to 
sea on July 3. 

According to one account, Tyndall did not return from 
his fishing voyage until July 10, and it must have been at 
this time that he made the survey about Cape Charles and 
the eastern shore ocean coast, which agreed with Hudson's.^ 

July 17, the governor and his Council in Virginia wrote 
from Jamestown, to the Virginia Company of London, a 
long report. The sickness had begun ; 150 had been sick 
(including the governor) at one time, and Dr. Bohun's 
" phisicall provisions " were nearly exhausted. And the 
Indians had already killed many of their men, by ambush- 
ing them, especially about the blockhouse and glass-house. 

^ There is reason to believe that at this time ; but it was more proba- 
Tyndall made a survey of the Chesa- bly somewhat later, 
peake Bay. It may have been done 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610— MAY, 1611 133 

July 16, as Sir Thomas Gates was going down the river, 
he saw the longboat belonging to Algernoune Fort (Point 
Comfort) blown ashore near to Weroscoick, and sent Hum- 
frey Blunt after it, whom certain Indians (watching the 
occasion) captured and killed ^ before the eyes of Lieu- 
tenant-General Gates, who in revenge, upon July 19, early 
in the morning set upon a town of theirs some four 
miles from Algernoune Fort, called Kecoughtan, and cap- 
tured it. 

Pochins, one of Powhatan's sons, was the werowance of 
Kecoughtan at this time. " It was an ample and fair coun- 
trie indeed, an admirable portion of land, comparatively 
high, wholesome, and fruitf ull ; the seat sometime of a thou- 
sand Indians and three hundred Indian houses, and those 
Indians, as it may well appear better husbandmen then in 
any part else that we have observed, which is the reason that 
so much ground is there cleared and opened, enough, with 
little labour, already prepared, to receive corn, or make vin- 
yards of two or three thousand acres. ... A delicate and 
necessary seat for a Citty or chief fortification, being so 
near (within three miles by water) the mouth of our bay, 
and a fit seat for a chief commander, since Point Comfort 
being (out of all dispute) to be fortefied to secure our 
townes above, to keep open the mouth of our river, by 
which our shipping may be let in [and the enemy kept out], 
it will require the faith and judgement of a worthy comman- 
der to be there always present ; besides, there will be good 
fishing, and upon one of the Capes may be placed a garri- 
son to attend the furnasses and boiling pots for the making 
of salt." The Frenchmen were soon set to work here to 
plant vines, which grew naturally in great plenty, and they 
confidently promised that within two years they would have 
a plentiful vintage. 

July 24, while the ships were loading at Weroscoick with 
cedar, clapboard, black walnut, and iron ore, Captain New- 
port took Sasenticum, the chief king of Weroscoick, and 

^ Probably at "Blunt Point," "near [opposite ?] to Weroscoick." 



134 UNDER THE COMPANY 

his son Kainta prisoners. The next day, Captain Adams 
brought them in the Blessing to Point Comfort, " where 
at that time (as well to take his leave of the Lieutenant- 
Generall Sir Thomas Gates now bound for England as to 
dispatch the ships) the Lord Governour and Captain Generall 
had pitched his Tent in Algernoune Fort." On the same 
day (July 25), Gates and Newport in the Blessing and the 
Hercules sailed for England, taking with them the letter to 
the Council (above mentioned), letters from the lord gover- 
nor and from the admiral to the prime minister, and from 
William Strachey to a lady in England, all of which have 
been preserved. They also carried the king's son Kainta 
to England. It may be that this was the Indian youth 
called Nanamack in " The Planter's Plea," ^ sent " over by 
the Lo: Delaware when Governor there." 

Their account of the colony as they left it, or so much as 
was deemed advisable to publish, will be found in " A True 
Declaration of the Estate of the Colonic in Virginia." ^ 
But, of course, the managers published nothing which they 
thought might injure the enterprise. On the other hand, 
the account in " A Briefe Declaration of the Plantation of 
Virginia during the first Twelve years " (1625) was written 
especially for party purposes in a party controversy. Strict 
accuracy was the object of neither ; but with a fair know- 
ledge of the facts, and with other evidences still remaining, 
full justice can be done to all parties. 

The statement of " the Briefe Declaration," that " not less 
then 150 of them died of pestilent diseases of callentures 
and feavors, within a few moneths after" De la Warr's 
arrival is approximately correct, as is, also, the statement 
that the two forts near the river's mouth had to be erected 
by the ancient planters, " who by use weare growen prac- 
tique in a hard way of livinge," as they expressed it ; 
but it would have been fairer to have said " who by time 
had become acclemated," and justice now requires us to 

1 London, 1630, p. 53. 

2 Force's Tracts, vol. iii. no. i. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, IGll 135 

acknowledge that tlie deaths could not then have heen pre- 
vented ; neither party was really to blame. 

The building of the two forts near the river's mouth 
began prior to July 25, 1610 ; " one was called Fort Henry 
and the other Fort Charles (in honor of our most noble 
Prince and his hopefull brother)." They were located at 
Kecoughtan, on a rivulet which Lord De la Warr called 
Southampton Eiver, in honor of Henry, earl of Southamp- 
ton, the early patron of Shakespeare and of Virginia. It 
is now called Hampton River ; but the original name should 
be restored. 

The current carried Somers and Argall northward, and 
finally separated them. July 26, they sailed toward Cape 
Cod. August 5, they stood for the river of Sagadahoc. 
August 6, they separated in a thick fog. Argall continued 
along the coast of North Virginia (New England) fishing, 
with success, until August 30, when he thought it fit to re- 
turn with his fish to Jamestown ; and finding it so much 
easier to go to this fishing than to the Bermudas for sup- 
plies, from this time onward the colonists in Virginia sent 
every year one or more vessels there. " In this voyage, Ar- 
gaU made good from 44° north latitude, what Captayne 
Bartho. Gosnol and Captayne Weymouth wanted in their 
discoveries, observing all along the coast, and drawing 
the plotts thereof, as he steered homewards, unto the Ches- 
apeake Bay." September 6, he entered the present Dela- 
ware Bay and named the southern cape " Cape La Warre." 
He anchored under Cape Charles at night, September 10, 
and the next day arrived at Algernoune Fort on Point Com- 
fort. 

Lord De la Warr, who had been superintending, as far 
as his weakness would permit, the operations on Southamp- 
ton River, and " refreshing himself in this pleasing part of 
the countrey," enjoying the sea-breezes, returned up the river 
with Argall ; at which time Captain Brewster in command 
of his lordship's own company, and Captain Argall with 
some seamen, fell upon two towns of Tackonekintaco, the 



136 UNDER THE COMPANY 

old werowance of Warraskoyack, and burnt them to the 
ground, because the chief had acted falsely towards the 
lord governor. 

Soon after this, the Dainty arrived with twelve men and 
one woman, three horses, and provisions for the colony. 

The governor, now wishing to march towards the moun- 
tains to discover the mines of gold or silver which "Faldo, an 
Helvetian," had persuaded the Council in England that he 
could locate, his people having been so reduced by death, 
felt obliged to order Captains Yeardley and Holcroft, the 
commanders of the two forts on Southampton River, to 
abandon them and bring their commands to Jamestown. 
The expedition soon set forward under command of Captains 
Edward Brewster and George Yeardley, being in number 
one hundred persons; but the Queen of Appamatuck in- 
vited some of them to a feast, and, while they were eating, 
treacherously massacred fourteen of them, including " all 
the chief men skillfull in finding out mines." Captain 
George Percy, Master Stacy, and fifty or sixty men, then 
landed, burnt her town, and killed some of her people, 
" herself miscarieng with small shott in pursuit in the 
woods." By reason of this disaster the expedition went 
no farther than the Falls of the river, where they built 
a fort and remained near three months, his lordship being 
there in person for most of the time. While there the sav- 
ages assaulted his troop and killed Captain William West, 
his nephew, and two or three more, and took Symon Skore, 
a sailor, and one Cob, a boy, prisoners. 

" But his disease growing much upon him he resolved 
to retire to Jamestown, giving order that the fort which we 
had built there should be quitted and the troupe drawn 
downe, which accordingly was done." 

All three new forts were now abandoned, and the colo- 
nists, reduced by the sickness and by the Indian massacres 
to less than two hundred, were concentrated at Jamestown 
and Algernoune Fort. When Dale attributed this state of 
affairs to the assertion that Lord De la Warr's object was 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610— MAY, 1611 137 

" rather the search after Faldoe's mines than the founding of 
the colony," it was as an apology rather than as a fact. It 
is true, however, that he was sent to rescue the old colony 
rather than to settle a new one. He wished to find mines, 
of course, but the first thing he did (his first object) was 
to strengthen the colony. He did not really search for the 
mines at all, and the real cause why the end had not been 
more fully advanced was " the sickness," as Dale found out 
himself within less than two months after his arrival. 

The last discovery made under Lord De la Warr in Vir- 
ginia was by Captain Argall, who in the winter went in 
the Discovery on a trading voyage up the Potomac, where 
he is said to have found some mines of antimony and lead, 
and a very profitable trade with the Indians. About Jan- 
uary 4, 1611, at a place called Pasptanzie he ransomed for 
copper from Jopassus (a brother of the great king of Po- 
tomac) Henry Spelmau, who had been living there more 
than a year. 

During this winter one Kemps, an Indian, who was made 
much of by the lord governor, died at Jamestown of the 
scurvy. The emigrants suffered severely from this disease 
at sea, and Dr. John Woodall, the medical adviser of Sir 
Thomas Smith, gave to it his especial attention. 

Dr. Bohun made trial of sundry vegetables and minerals 
of Virginia in his treatment of the diseases of the country ; 
among the vegetable remedies he found " saxafras, galha- 
num mechoacon, otherwise called ruharbiim album, to be 
of service in cold and moist bodies, for the purginge of 
fleame and superfluous matter." And among the minerals 
he found a " whit bole, which he called Terra alba Vir- 
gmensis, both aromaticall, and cordiall, and diapharetick, 
in pestilent and malignant feavers." Many then believed 
in the virtues of Lemnian earth, terra sigillata (sealed 
earth), and this was thought to be in great plenty in Vir- 
ginia. 

February 19, 1611, Captain George Percy, the com- 
mandant at Jamestown, sent Ensigns Powell and Waller to 



138 UNDER THE COMPANY 

surprise the king of Paspahegh, who, with a company of 
his people, was liu-king about the old blockhouse at James- 
town, and to bring him alive into the town if possible ; but 
they not finding him at such advantage, Powell thrust him 
twice through the body with an arming sword. His men 
rescued his body, but Lieutenant Puttock of the blockhouse 
killed another "to accompanye his master in the other 
world." 

In March the fishing, especially for herring, began, and 
the fishermen were now more successful. But the lord 
governor was still very weak, " owing to his constant atten- 
tion to business and the air of an uncultivated country." 
He was in no condition to meet another sickly season in 
Virginia, and being warned if he wished to preserve his 
life that he must leave the colony for a time, on April 7, 
1611, he sailed in the De la Warr, Captain Argall, for the 
island of Mevis for the benefit of the warm baths there, 
taking with him some of his sickly colonists for the same 
benefit ; but not being able to sail against the wind and 
current, his ship was carried by these elements to the Azores, 
where he remained about eight days, and reached England 
" towards the end of May." 

On leaving the colony the lord governor appointed Cap- 
tain George Percy to act as his deputy governor until the 
coming of the marshal, Sir Thomas Dale (who was then 
expected daily), whose commission was likewise to be deter- 
mined upon the arrival of Sir Thomas Gates. In the re- 
port which he published to the public in England, he stated 
that he had left " about 200 persons " in the colony ; but 
it was constantly necessary to make these over-statements 
in the interest of the colony. If we subtract those who 
died of the sickness, and those who were killed by the In- 
dians during his stay, and those taken back to England 
by him, from his original number, it will be found that he 
must have left less than 150 persons. 

The Hercules, Captain Adams, which had been sent from 
Virginia for supplies on July 25, 1610, arrived at James- 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1610 — MAY, 1611 139 

town with the supplies and about thirty emigrants soon 
after the lord governor's departure. She brought the news 
that James I. had agreed to grant the company a second 
charter, to include the Bermuda Islands, and conveying 
to them other privileges, etc. The season for fishing for 
sturgeon, which had always been a great relief to the col- 
ony, began in April, and the sturgeon-curer who arrived 
on the Hercules at once proceeded to do his duty. In 
about thirty days (May 22, 1611) the ship was ready to re- 
turn for England, and Deputy Governor Percy and some 
of the Council went down with her to Alofernoune Fort to 
give Captain Adams his discharge (clearance papers) for 
Enofland. 



VII 

ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1610 — MAY, 1611 

THE COMPANY PREPARING A SECOND REGULAR EFFORT FOR 
SETTLING THE COLONY; THE FIRST PORTION SENT UNDER 
SIR THOMAS DALE, THE SECOND PORTION TO BE SENT 
UNDER SIR THOMAS GATES 

Early in September, 1610, the Blessing, of Plymouth, 
and the Hercules, of Rye, returned to England with Gates, 
Newport, Captain Adams, and others from Virginia. They 
brought full accounts of the condition of the colony, the 
causes thereof, etc., many letters, reports, and other docu- 
ments. They related in England the first news of the 
miraculous deliverance of the colonists from " the Tem- 
pest " on " the Hand of the Devils." 

" The Councell of Virginia (finding the smalnesse of that 
returne, which they hoped should have defraied the charge 
of a new supply) entred into a deepe consultation, and pro- 
pounded amongst themselves, whether it were fit to enter 
into a new contribution, or in time to send for home the 
Lord La-ware, and to abandon the action." " They re- 
solved to send for Sir Thomas Gates, who being come, they 
adjured him to deale plainely with them, and to make a 
true relation of those things which were presently to be had, 
or hereafter to be hoped for in Virginia, Sir Thomas Gates 
with a solemne and sacred oath replied, that all things be- 
fore reported were true ; that the country yeeldeth abun- 
dance of wood, of nearly every kind, for almost every 
purpose ; mulberry trees for silk worms ; divers sorts of 
minerals," etc. ; " the river swarmed with sturgeon," etc. ; 
" the land with vines," etc. ; " the woods with fui"bearing 
animals," etc. ; " and lastly, that it is one of the goodliest 
countries under the Sunne ; " and that " he longeth and 



ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1610 — MAY, 1611 141 

hasteneth to go thither again." Then a letter from Lord 
De la Warr was read in which he wrote " that he will 
sacrifice himself for his Countrie in this service, if he may 
be seconded, and if the Company doe give it over he will 
yet lay all his fortunes upon the prosecution of the 
Plantation." " It was finallie concluded and ao^reed " to 
petition James I. for " the second Letters Patent," which 
would include the Bermuda Islands and grant to the 
Virginia Company sundry desirable privileges ; and the 
petition was properly drafted and then presented to go 
through the regular routine. 

After the managers of the company had considered all 
reports bearing on the failure of theii- first effort, they were 
convinced — although circumstances beyond human control 
had destroyed the possibility of any good success which 
miofht otherwise have resulted from their first larg^e fleet of 
emigrants and supplies — that their original idea, " that 
an able and strong foundation was to be secured only by 
a strong force able to lay it in the beginning," was the 
correct idea; and that this strong force should be sent 
out in two or more sections, so as not to risk all on a single 
chance. They wished to send " a greater supply of men " 
than before, and they determined to ask the adventurers 
(who " should be inserted as freemen and adventurers in 
the said second Letters Patent ") to lay down towards this 
new supply the sum of .£75, at the least, for every partic- 
ular man's adventure, payable £25 per annum in one, two, 
and three years. This subscription roll was opened in 
November, 1610. We have sundry references to these 
meetings, but no full account of them. It is probable that 
the first Virginia quarter court under the second charter 
(then granted but not signed) was held on the last Wednes- 
day save one of the Michaelmas term, 1610, and that the im- 
portant measures then under consideration were considered 
at this court, and at the following courts, of the Hilary and 
Easter terms, 1611, but the records have not been found. 

September 30, 1610, Velasco wrote to his king about 



142 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the recent return of Newport, of the preparations for send- 
ing more ships with men, women, and ministers of their 
religion, and that he thought their plans could be brought 
to naught with great facility if his Majesty would send a 
few ships to " drive out the few people that have remained 
there," etc. 

Jourdan's " Discovery of the Barmudas " and Rich's 
" Lost Flocke Triumphant " were printed soon after the 
return of Gates. 

November 18, " A true Declaration of the Estate of the 
Colony of Virginia, with a confutation of such scandulous 
reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an en- 
terprise," was entered at Stationers' Hall, for pubHcation, 
by Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Maurice Berkley, Sir George 
Coppin, and Master Richard Martin. It was " published 
by advise and direction of the Counsell of Virginia." The 
tract states that as " no man raiseth a faire building, that 
laith not a firme foundation, it will not be impertinent, to 
dig a little deeper, that we may build a great deale higher." 
It then goes on to outline the foundation. The three main 
impediments to be confuted were : " first, the dangerous 
passage by sea ; secondly, the barrenness of the country ; 
thirdly, the unwholesomeness of the climate. The Tempest 
proving the first, the famine in Virginia importing the 
second, and the sickness there arguing the third." Each 
of these was answered in as favorable a way for the enter- 
prise as possible. The sickness was mainly attributed to 
" the fennes and marshes " about Jamestown, and Dale was 
afterwards ordered to look up a more favorable site for the 
city. 

From the first diplomacy and circumspection were re- 
quired in the management of this enterprise, as well as in 
giving to the public information and explanations, and all 
published reports were more or less varnished for one rea- 
son or another, and none of them can be relied on impli- 
citly. For a fact, the first and third impediments were 
real impediments, and the second charge was resultant 



ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1610 — MAY, 1611 143 

from them and not from " the barrenness of the country." 
Ships and men were lost, and provisions damaged and ex- 
hausted en route, while the sickness during the most impor- 
tant agricultural months hindered the proper tilling of the 
soil and production of supplies. All of these difficulties 
had to be met, and in due time they were overcome, — the 
first by various subsequent naval inventions, but especially 
steam ; the third by clearing the country, by tillage, and 
drainage, but especially by the discovery of quinine. We 
cannot write the true history of this movement without 
keeping before us at all times several facts which were 
then, for a good purpose or a bad one, denied or obscured. 
And the most important of these is the fact that our 
Atlantic coast, in the warmer sections during the warm 
seasons, was not " agreeable to English constitutions." It 
was the real cause of the deaths of thousands, attributed 
to bad manao-ement or other unreal causes. 

Fortunately for the success of the movement, circum- 
stances had soon created in the minds of many able and 
resolute Englishmen a determination to secure a lot or 
portion in the New World for the English race and re- 
ligion at all hazards. Even before the first return of 
Newport from Virginia this object had become a matter 
in which the honor of the nation was at stake, and the 
Anglo-Saxon has never yet been known to yield that 
honor under any circumstances or conditions. The un- 
avoidable difficulties, dangers, diseases, etc., in this in- 
stance, were as great as they well could be, while (saving 
the first two years) even the hope of a pecuniary reward 
was as small as possible until after 1615, insomuch that at 
several times even some Ano^lo-Saxons faltered and fell 
out of the ranks ; but enough remained true to accomplish 
the task which they undertook. 

The managers were now preparing to try again the idea 
of January, 1609 (which had been defeated by the tem- 
pest), and to send a large supply " to take fast hold and 
roote in that land." 



144 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The Spanish Council of State had a consultation on 
November 2, over Velasco's letter of September 30, and 
determined to submit it to the Council of War, with the 
permission of the king, and he agreed to it. 

In explanation of the apparent dawdling of Spain in this 
matter, all the influences then at work must be borne in 
mind, and yet some of them are unknown to us. Even the 
reports of the English ambassador to Spain, on this subject, 
are mostly missing. It is probable, however, that Philip 
III. and Lerma always hoped to settle the matter in a way 
more satisfactory to them than by a war with the English, 
either by a marriage treaty, or some diplomatic arrange- 
ment ; or that the Englisli^would finally abandon the coun- 
try of themselves, or be destroyed by the Indians. They 
knew the climatic conditions, and it may be that they were 
better posted from time to time from Florida as to the 
real condition of the colony than has been supposed. 

The Dainty probably returned from Virginia in Decem- 
ber, when it was determined to send the Hercules, Captain 
Adams, with the supplies asked for, at once, and, according 
to custom, " the Counsell of Virginia " issued a broadside 
calling for emigrants. The ship sailed soon after Decem- 
ber 25. 

Prior to this. Sir Noel de Caron, the ambassador from 
the Netherlands in England, made overture to join with 
the English in settling Virginia. About the same time Sir 
Thomas Dale was sent for. On December 31, Velasco 
reported on the proposed Virginian voyage to his king. 
There is reason for thinking that Sir Walter Ralegh wished 
to go on this voyage. It was found that the city com- 
panies of London were not so willing to adventure their 
stock in this voyage as they had been in that of one year 
before ; but the movement went on. Early in January, 
1611, "the Counsell of Virginia" issued their broadside 
calling for honest and industrious men to " be entertained 
for the voyage." January 20, the States General granted 
leave of absence to Sir Thomas Dale. He soon reached 



ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1610 — MAY, 1611 145 

England, and was married there early in February to Eliza- 
beth, daughter of Sir Thomas Throckmorton. 

The French ship, the Grace of God, with Father Biard 
and other Jesuits, was at New[3ort, England, from January 
29 to February 16, 1611, on her way to Port Royal, in 
New France, and thus the English were at once aware of 
the proposed French settlement in North Virginia. 

Soon after Dale reached England, Sir Thomas Gates 
hastened to Holland to confer with the States about the 
before-mentioned overture of Sir Noel de Caron, and to 
obtain an extension of his own leave of absence. He 
reached the Hague on February 10, and at once handed 
Cecil's letters in his favor to Sir Ralph Winwood, the Eng- 
lish ambassador there. He obtained an extension of his 
leave; but if there was any arrangement as to the over- 
ture, the record of it has not been found ; it may have been 
a private one. 

February 20, the king of Spain wrote to Don Gaspar de 
Pereda, governor of the Havana, Cuba, telling him of the 
preparations for Virginia, warning him to be prepared on 
his part,^ and to obtain a certain account of affairs in 
Virginia, etc. 

Dale's ships fell down the river from London prior to 
March 2, but he did not leave himself until after the 9th. 
His fleet sailed from the Land's End, March 27. 

As soon as these ships left London, His Majesty's Coun- 
cil for Virginia hastened the preparation for the expedition 
under Gates, who was to " second " Dale. With this object 
in view they issued, on March 2, a circular letter to the 
noblemen, bishops, and clergy, that had not yet signed, 
to the gentry, merchants, and corporate towns of the king- 
dom, asking their assistance. They write, " The eyes of 
all Europe are looking upon our endevors to spread the 
Gospel among the Heathen people of Virginia, to plant 
our English nation there, and to settle at in those parts." 
They ask for a sufficient sum to enable them to settle there 

1 To intercept them by the way ? 



146 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" a very able and strong foundation of anexing another 
Kingdom to this Crown," and for their cooperation in " the 
furtherance of this action, that tends so directly to advance 
the glory of God, the honor of our English nation and the 
profit and security, in our judgment, of this Kingdome." 

Henry Reynolds, esquire, sent a copy of this letter to 
Ipswich, and, on March 14, that corporation issued an order 
for " adventuring out of the town treasure .£100., in the 
name of the bayliffes, burgesses and commonaltie of the 
said towne, in the voyage to Virginia." 

March 22, Velasco wrote to his king, sending him an 
account of Virginia (that he had procured from Sir William 
Monson, which, while favorable, was calculated to cool the 
opposition of Spain, and Velasco was not so urgent there- 
after for the removal of the English), and a map showing 
the English claim in America. This map, which embraced 
the surveys of Tyndall, Argall, and others along our Atlan- 
tic coast from 34° to 52° north latitude,^ has been the sub- 
ject of some controversy, into which it is not necessary for 
me to enter here farther than to state that the original of 
the Virginia portion of it is evidently the original of, as it 
is identical with, the first engraved map made by William 
Hole in 1612 for Captain John Smith (who was then in 
the service and under the patronage of the Earl of Hert- 
ford), which was afterwards " retouched " from time to 
time. The same man must have drawn the original from 
which Velasco's copy and Hole's engraving were made. I 
have never seen any reason to doubt that Smith furnished 
the drawing from which Hole engraved for him this map 
for his books, which thus came to be known as Smith's 
map of Virginia. The question has been as to whether 
the drawing furnished by Smith was made by himself from 
his own surveys, or whether it was one of the drawings 
(which came into his hands when he was president of the 
Council) of the capable surveyors and draughtsmen (Tyn- 
dall, Powell, Madison, and, it may be, others now unknown) 

^ See The Genesis of the United States, pp. 457-461. 



ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER, 1610 — MAY, 1611 H7 

sent over by the king or company to make surveys and 
draughts of the country for them. That is, was Smith a 
surveyor and draughtsman, or did he take to himself the 
honors which belonged to others ? Other important ques- 
tions are, who furnished Velaseo with these private charts ? 
Who first gave them to the enemy ? We know who first 
gave them to the public. 

The managers had many maps and charts of Virginia, 
ranging in date from 1607 to 1625 (from Tyndall to Clai- 
borne and Norwood), and the reason why none of their 
originals have been found is now well understood. Owing 
to the party split in the company (1622-1624) it came to 
pass that many of the officials of the first administration, 
under the crown and under the company, really aided and 
abetted the Privy Council in the determination to restore 
the government of the colony to the crown and to conceal 
the record of the company, and they not only made no 
effort to preserve any of their records, maps, etc., but they 
freely gave all to the king's commissioners. Hence the 
company records for 1606-1619 are mostly missing ; but 
documents still preserved in the Netherlands, France, and 
Spain, and scattered about in English repositories, show 
how very important those records were. These documents 
illustrate many important events, but they seldom give the 
minor particulars. 

March 31, Sir Edwin Sandys wrote to the mayor and 
jurats of Sandwich, sending them " The Circular letter of 
his Majesties Council for Virginia," " The List of subscrib- 
ers," and " The Classes of emigrants wanted." Certain 
noblemen and the city companies of London had adventured 
£5,000, and the 301 persons in " the List " £13,000 more 
before March 2 ; and the Council for Virginia were now 
making an effort to raise the additional sum of £12,000 
to make the £30,000 deemed necessary to enable them "to 
lay a strong foundation for so great a work," which they 
finally succeeded in doing. 

The first draft for the charter, petitioned for in October 



148 UNDER THE COMPANY 

or November, 1610, annexed to the petition, as for the char- 
ter o£ 1609, was drawn by Sir Edwin Sandys, and, as with 
that charter, this was to be kept open, and " every planter 
and adventurer was to be inserted in the Patent, by name," 
so " that posterity may hereafter know who have adven- 
tured and not been sparing of their purses in such a noble 
and generous action for the general good of their coun- 
try." And all of those on this " List," who were not old 
adventurers already enrolled in the charter of 1609, as well 
as the subsequent subscribers to the fund, were enrolled 
before the new charter was signed and sealed on March 22, 
1612. 

About a month after the French ship, the Grace of God, 
left Newport, England, Edward Harlie and Nicholas Hob- 
son sailed for North Virginia ; and Hugh Lee wrote to 
Cecil from Madrid that a Spanish ship was about to sail from 
Lisbon to the discovery of Virginia, under the guidance 
of an English pilot named Francis Lymbrye. This Spanish 
ship sailed by order of the king of Spain on April 13, 
1611. Ten days thereafter, Francis Cottington, the Eng- 
lish ambassador at Madrid, wrote to Cecil of a reported 
expedition from Lisbon of at least forty sail of ships against 
Virginia. He had no faith in this report, but told Cecil 
that the Spaniards were undoubtedly troubled about those 
plantations. May 3, Cottington wrote again on the same 
subject to the same purport. 

May 26, Velasco wrote from London to his king, telling 
him of two vessels which had sailed for Virginia or to the 
island of Trinidad to trade for tobacco. I know nothing 
of these vessels. 

Sir Thomas Gates, with three ships and three carvels, 
sailed from England for Virginia in May, 1611. 



vm 

VIRGINIA, MAY, 1611 — MAY, 1612 

SIR THOMAS DALE, BEPUTY-GOVEENOR, MAY-AUGUST, 1611. 
SIR THOMAS GATES, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, AUGUST, 1611— 
MA Y, 1612 

Sir Thomas Dale sailed from the Land's End, March 
27, with the Starr (Captain Newport, vice-admiral of Vir- 
ginia, in charge of the voyage, and John Clark, jDilot), 
the Prosperous, and the Elizabeth, and three hundred peo~ 
pie and all things necessary for the colony, and also some 
horses, kine, goats, " besides coneies, pigeons and pullen " 
(poultry). They reached the Canaries early in April, and 
Dominica (West Indies) on May 9, where they took on 
water, then sailed to Porto Rico, and thence to Virginia 
and anchored before Algernoune Fort, at Point Comfort, 
at night. May 22, 1611. The men brought by Dale were 
classed as " honest sufficient artificers," " honest and indus- 
trious men, carpenters, smiths, coopers, fishermen, tanners, 
shoemakers, shipwrights, brickmen, gardeners, husbandmen, 
and laborino; men of all sorts." Rev. Alexander Whitaker 
came at this time as one of their ministers, and the Rev. 
Mr. Poole as another. 

Dale found Deputy-Governor Percy and some of the 
Council at the fort, who had come down to give the Her- 
cules, Captain Adams, then ready to sail, her discharge for 
England. He detained this ship for his own " letters of 
Adviso." He found Captain Davis' company and most of 
Sir Thomas Gates' company in Algernoune Fort. The two 
forts (Henry and Charles) on Southampton River having 
been abandoned, his first labor was to repossess them, and 
on the 23d he viewed the forts and cleared ground about 
them ; then set the carpenters to building cottages for the 



150 UNDER THE COMPANY 

present, and the rest to planting corn. Leaving the cap- 
tains, who had just arrived with him, about this business, 
and constituting Captain James Davis taskmaster of the 
whole three forts, he went up the river to Jamestown, and 
arrived there on Sunday afternoon. May 29, " where he 
landed and first repaired to the church (the company thither 
assembled) Mr. Poole preached a sermon. Then Mr. Stra- 
chy read the commission which the Lord-Governor had left 
with him for Sir Thomas Dale, and Capt. Percy surrendered 
up his commission it being accordingly so to expire." 

Little planting had yet been done ; but the cattle, cows, 
goats, swine, poultry, etc., of the former colonists were all 
in good plight. 

May 30, Deputy-Governor Dale held a consultation with 
the Council, and they decided at once to repair the church 
and storehouse ; to build a stable for their horses, a muni- 
tion-house, a powder-house, and sturgeon-dressing house ; 
to dig a new well ; to make brick ; to raise a blockhouse 
on the north side of the back river to prevent the Indians 
from killing the cattle ; a house to store hay in, and lodge 
the cattle in winter, and to perfect a smith's forge ; besides 
private gardens for each man, common (public) gardens 
for hemp and flax, and such other seeds, and lastly a bridge 
to land the goods dry and safe upon. Captain Edward 
Brewster with his gang were to repair the church, etc.. 
Captain Lawson with his gang to build the stable, and 
Captain Newport with the mariners undertook the bridge. 

The Council sat again on the next day, when it was " de- 
termined with God's grace (after the cornes setting at the 
Princes Forts) to go up unto the Falls ward to search for 
and advise upon a seat for a new Towne." 

June 1, Deputy-Governor Dale made divers proclama- 
tions which he caused to be set up for the public view. 
One for the preservation of their cattle ; another for the 
valuation of provisions amongst the mariners. On the next 
day the deputy-governor went down the river with Captain 
Adams to Algernoune Fort, to give him his discharge for 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1611 — MAY, 1612 151 

England. Adams sailed in the Hercules on tlie 4th, taking 
with him sundry letters, etc. In Dale's letter sent to the 
Council for Viro^inia in Eng^land he advised them to send 
a vice-admiral and mariners to reside in the colony to trade 
and fish for the colonists ; also some " able chirurgions." 

Returning from Point Comfort, Dale, with an hundred 
men, discovered the Nansemond River to the head, " de- 
spight of the Indians, then our enemies." 

After the middle of June, Dale went up James River to 
search for a proper site for the new town which he had 
been instructed to plant in Virginia. They searched all 
the way to the Falls, and finally selected " a high land in- 
vironed with the Mayn River, near to an Indian Towne 
called Arsahattocke ; " " 80 [50 ?] miles up the river from 
Jamestown." He wrote to the prime minister of England : 
" I have surveved a convenient strongf, healthie and sweet 
seate to plant the new Town in, from whence might be no 
more remove of the principall Seate ; and in that forme to 
build, as might accommodate the inhabitants, and become 
the Title and Name which it hath pleased the Lords [the 
Privy Council], allreadie to appoint for it." It had been 
appointed by the Privy Council to name the new town 
Henrico for Henry, Prince of Wales, the patron of Dale 
and of Virginia. 

Dale thouofht that he saw g-ood indications of mines 
about the Falls, and Strachey found in an Indian house 
certain claws, which he afterwards carried to England, and 
was assured that they were lion's claws. Whitaker wrote 
to Crashaw, " that while they were at the Falls, one night 
our men being at prayers in the corps-du-guard, heard a 
strano;e noise cominof out of the corn towards the trenches 
of our men like an Indian ' hup Imp ' with an ^ Oho Oho ' 
some said that they saw one like an Indian leap over the 
fire and run into the corn with the same noise." The 
English, who dreaded witches in those days, were greatly 
alarmed. Whitaker thought "there were great witches 
amongest them and they very familiar with the divill." 



152 UNDER THE COMPANY 

April 13, 1611, a large Spanish sloop left Lisbon with 
the alcayde Don Diego de Molina, the ensign Marco An- 
tonio Perez, and Francis Lymbrye, a pilot of the English 
navy, under orders from the king of Spain to proceed to 
Don Gaspar Ruyz de Pareda, governor of Cuba, and under 
his orders to find out all that they could about the English 
colony. They left Havana June 2, and reached St. Augus- 
tine, Florida, the 8th, where they remained eight days. 
Thence they sailed on up the coast, sounding, surveying, 
taking the latitudes, etc. St. Augustine was at 30° close 
measure, and the point of the Bay of Virginia on the south 
side was at 37° 10' north latitude, the distance between 
the two points being about 170 leagues in a straight line, 
and about 200 leagues following the coast. They came 
before Algernoune Fort, where they found a ship lying at 
anchor, about June 27 (the exact date is not certainly 
known), and after some preliminaries, Don Diego de Mo- 
lina, Marco Antonio Perez, and Francis Lymbrye went on 
shore and were made prisoners by the English, who sent 
John Clark to try to induce the master of the carvel to 
permit him to pilot his vessel close to the fort ; but the 
Spaniard, suspecting that something was wrong, kept Clark 
as a prisoner. The next day, after much parleying over 
the prisoners on both sides, the master of the Spanish ves- 
sel told Captain James Davis that unless he surrendered 
Don Diego and his companions he would fight him. Davis, 
in reply to the Spaniard, told him to " go to the Devil," 
and he returned to Havana, taking Clark with him, and 
arriving there on July 20, 1611. 

Clark was induced to give the Spaniards a description 
of Virginia, with an account of the state of affairs there 
at that time, which is interesting, but diplomatic. " There 
were four forts, all on the north side of the river. First, 
[Algernoune] Fort at Point Comfort, containing 7 pieces 
of artillery, two of 35 ' quintales,' the others of 30, 20 and 
18, all of iron. 50 persons, 40 fit to carry arms, the rest 
women and boys. The second fort, two-thirds of a league 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1611 — MAY, 1612 153 

from tlie first, and the third a musket-shot from the second, 
both fitted with guns for defense against the Indians 
[Fort Henry, and Fort Charles at Kecoughtan]. The 
Fourth Fort was the principal settlement [Jamestown], 
which is 20 leagues up the river from the first fort, and in 
it there are 16 pieces of artillery. The tides continued up 
the river 30 leagues above the town. And the Indians 
reported the South Sea as 16 to 18 days journey above the 
head of the tide. There were about 1000 persons in aU 
the said settlements, and in the forts some 600 fit for car- 
rying arms. The trade was principally timber and ' sasi- 
frage.' They had brought to the colony 100 cows, 200 
swine, 100 goats and 17 horses and mares ; and he heard 
there was a gold mine. He left six ships in the river, 
namely : — the three which went over with Dale ; the two 
which had been built in the Bermudas, and one [the Vir- 
ginia ?] which was built in said Virginia [in North Vir- 
ginia ?]. And they were then building a galley of 25 
benches." He makes the forts stronger in men and artil- 
lery than they really were ; the distance to the South Sea 
farther than the Indians pretended it was ; the shipping 
stronger in tonnage ; and one of the Bermudas pinnaces 
was then in England. 

We have no particular account of events in Virginia just 
after the capture of the Spaniards ; but their capture was 
one of the most important events in the beginning of the 
nation. They were carried up to Jamestown (probably ar- 
rived there about July 1), and taken before Deputy-Gov- 
ernor Dale. An idea of the feeling there may be derived 
from Dale's letter to the prime minister of England : — 

" A Spanish Car vail came into our river (this summer) 
fitted Avith a shallop necessary and proper to discover fresh- 
ets, rivers and creeks, where she anchoring at the mouth of 
our Bay upon Point Comfort, sent three Spaniards ashore 
into the fort there placed demanding a pilot to bring their 
said Carvall into our River. What may be the danger of this 
unto us, who are here so few, so weak, and unfortified, since 



154: UNDER THE COMPANY 

they have by this means sufficiently instructing^ themselves 
concerning our just height and seat, and know the readie 
way unto us both by this discoverer, and by the help like- 
wise of our owne Pilot, I refer me to your own honorable 
knowledge." 

To add to the trouble the sickly season had begun, and 
nearly all of those who had not been " seasoned " were 
sick. There was real need of the strong hand of the law, 
and, on July 2, Sir Thomas Dale, marshal and deputy-gov- 
ernor, added sundry " marshall laws " ^ to the laws which 
had already been adopted by the lord governor. Even the 
colonists at that time acknowledged that these laws were 
then needful with all severity to be executed ; but they 
were " much mitigated " even before 1614, and finally 
abolished. 

They had from the first expected an attack from the 
Spaniards. The fleets of Spain were constantly sailing 
from her American possessions via the Gulf Stream just off 
the coast of Virginia. We can well understand the great 
anxiety of Dale and the colonists at that time. They 
thought that the Spanish carvel, sent out on " a scout," 
had returned — possibly to the main fleet — with all neces- 
sary information. 

After waiting a reasonable time, to see what was to fol- 
low, about August 27 Dale sent the Elizabeth to England 
as an " adviso " of recent events in Virginia, sending by 
her letters to the Virginia managers, " the Council," and 
" Committees " in England ; also a letter to the prime min- 
ister, urging the necessity of fortifying Virginia more 
strongly ; asking for a standing army of " 2,000 men to be 
here by the beginning of next April ; to enable him to 
fortify, etc. : first. Point Comfort ; second, Kiskaick ; third, 
Jamestowne ; fourth, Henrico, and fifth, at The Falls ; " 
begging him to rescue the colony as he had previously 
done ; describing the great advantages of the country from 
the mouth of the river to the Falls ; telling him that of 

1 See Force's Tracts, vol. iii., no, ii., pp. 20-62, 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1611 -MAY, 1612 155 

the 300 brought by him not sixty were then able to work, 
attributing it rather to their " diseased and erased bodies " 
than the climate ; and lastly telling him about the arrival 
of the Spanish ship at the " Point and of his three pris- 
oners." The ship also took letters from Whittaker to 
Crashaw, and from George Percy to the earl of Northum- 
berland. William Strachey, the secretary of the colony, 
went back in this ship, taking with him " the private ad- 
vises " and a copy of the " Laws, divine, moral 1 and mar- 
tiall " which he had taken the pains to gather together 
for the benefit of such young soldiers as wished to learn 
their duties. He also carried to England " a falcon and a 
tassell, the one sent by Sir Thomas Dale to his highnes the 
Prince, and the other was presented to the Earl of Salis- 
bury." Strachey, after reaching England, wrote a long 
" Historic of Travaile into Virginia Britannia," etc., a part 
of which has been printed. 

As soon as possible after the arrival of the prisoners at 
Jamestown, Dale had put his men, as actively as the sick- 
ness would permit, to work preparing timber, pales, posts, 
and rails " for the present impaling of the new town [Hen- 
rico], to secure himself and men from the treachery of 
the Indians, in the midst of whom, he was resolved to set 
downe ; " beino; now more convinced than ever of the im- 
portance of having the main settlement farther from the 
river's mouth and more inaccessible to the shipping of 
Spain. While at this work the news came from Algernoune 
Fort that a fleet of three ships, with three carvels (the 
same kind of vessel being much used by the Spaniards and 
like the one recently at the Point), were sailing into the 
bay. Naturally they supposed it to be the Spanish fleet 
from which the j)risoners had come, and Dale, being a war- 
like and resolute captain, prepared himself instantly. The 
land fortifications beino" still too weak to withstand a for- 
eign enemy, Dale ordered the whole company to board the 
two good ships, the Star and Prosperous, and the pinnace, 
the Deliverance, resolved to meet them on the water, and 



156 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" rather to fire the Spanish ships with his own, than either 
basely to yield, or to be taken ; assuring his men that if by 
these means God had ordained to set a period to their lives, 
they could never be sacrificed in a more acceptable ser- 
vice." He then caused a small shallop ^ to be manned with 
thirty good men and sent down the river to reconnoitre ; 
within three hours they returned with the good news that 
it was an English fleet, " Sir Thomas Gates his Fleet " 
coming in " after a passage more long than usual." 

Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant-general of Virginia, re- 
turned from Holland in March and sailed from England 
" toward the end of May 1611, with three ships [the Trial, 
the Swan (and Sarah ?)] and three carvells [for cattle only], 
and two hundred and fourscore men and twenty women, 
and two hundred Kine, as many swine with other necessa- 
ries." His wife and daughters went with him. The fleet 
sailed via the West Indies, and while stopping there his 
wife died. He arrived in Virginia " a little before Dale's 
ships [the ships which brought Dale over] were ready to 
depart," about the last of August. As with Dale the emi- 
grants brought by him were nearly all artisans, — workers 
in iron, builders of ships, millwrights for water-mills, agri- 
culturists, brickmakers and bricklayers, fishermen, carpen- 
ters, smiths, etc. 

'''■ The worthies being met, after salutation and welcome 
given," the commission left by the lord governor was read 
and handed to Lieutenant-Governor Gates. Sir Thomas 
Dale, marshal, then surrendered his commission. He next 
acquainted the lieutenant-governor with such business as 
he had effected since his arrival, and also with his resolution 
to build a new town near the Falls, which purpose Lieuten- 
ant-Governor Gates approving, he selected from 300 to 350 
men, and about the middle of September, 1611, set out 
from Jamestown with the tide, and in a day and a half 
landed at the site selected. Having already prepared much 
of the material, within ten days he had strongly fortified 

1 The Virginia ? 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1611 — MAY, 1612 157 

seven English acres of ground for a town, "^ which in 
honour of the noble Prince Henrie (whose royal heart was 
ever strongly affected to that action) he called by the name 
of Henrico." He next built strong watch-towers at each 
corner of the town, a fair and handsome church and store- 
houses ; then houses for himself and men, and by the mid- 
dle of January, 1612, had made " Henrico much better 
and of more worth than all the work ever since the Colony 
began, therein done." The first story of these houses was 
of brick burnt there by the brick-men. " Here [on Mount 
Malady ?] they were building [in February, 1612] an Hos- 
pital with fourscore lodgings (and beds alreadie sent to fur- 
nish them) for the sick and wounded or lame, with Keepers 
to attend them for their comfort and recoverie." 

While Marshal Dale was building Henrico on what is 
now known as Farrar's Island, Lieutenant-Governor Gates 
was in charge of the colony, residing at Jamestown. He was 
busy about building, planting, etc., and loading the ships 
for England. The country was commodious for ship-timber 
of all sorts. " The Starr a ship of 300 tons sent prepared 
with scupper holes to take in masts was not able to stow 
forty of the fourscore [they were so long], unless they 
should have cut them shorter." Vice-Admiral Newport 
sailed for England with this ship in November, and (their 
mother having died) Gates sent his daughters back with 
him. Five other ships were sent back to England during 
the winter with rejDorts of the well-doing of the colony, and 
after their arrival an account of " The new life of Vir- 
ginia " was published. 

Possibly every ship returning from the colony carried a 
general or private letter from the governor and Council in 
Virginia to the Council in England. During Strachey's 
stay they were " penned " by him under instructions from 
the officers, and, after he left, by Ralph Hamor, Jr., — that 
is, by the secretary or acting secretary of the colony ; and 
it is constantly to be regretted that so few of these official 
reports have been preserved. 



158 UNDER THE COMPANY 

In February or March, 1612, when Marshal Dale had 
nearly settled his new town, " dyvers of his men being idell" 
ran away to the Indians ; many were taken again and exe- 
cuted in a most severe manner " to terrify the rest from 
attempting the lyke." This desertion to the Indians was 
called " Webbes and Prices designe." About the same 
time Algernoune Fort was accidentally burnt to the ground. 
We are told that Captain Davis and his men at once went 
actively to work rebuilding it, but it seems to have been 
abandoned for a time after this. 

Sir Robert Mansfield's ship the John and Francis reached 
Virginia with men and supplies probably in January, 1612, 
and soon returned to England with news ; but we have no 
detailed account of this voyage. 

Marco Antonio Perez, one of the Spanish prisoners, died 
in the spring of 1612. 

The Indians had recently been getting more and more 
into the habit of bringing victuals into the fort at James- 
town. The Enghsh became convinced that they came as 
sjDies rather than for good affection, and Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor Gates, having reason to suspect some treachery brewing, 
caused several of them " to be apprehended and executed 
for a terrour to the rest, to cause them to desist from their 
subtell practyses." 

May 2, 1612, Captain George Percy " sett Sayle " from 
Viroiiiia on the Trial. 

Mara Buck, daughter of Rev. Richard Buck, and Alice 
Laydon, the second daughter of John Laydon, were prob- 
ably born in Virginia in the period covered by this chapter. 



IX 

ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 

FEOM THE RETURN OF THE LORD GOVERNOR, THOMAS WEST, 
LORD DE LA WARR, TO THE DEATH OF PRIME MINISTER 
CECIL 

Lord De la Warr on liis return passed Lieutenant- 
Governor Gates at the Cowes, near Portsmouth, " towards 
the end of May, 1611 " (probably early in June, present 
style) ; but he did not come to London until July 1 (N. S.). 
On the next day he wrote to Cecil, telling him that he had 
reached London the night before, and had now entirely 
recovered from the sickness which obHged him to leave 
Virginia. 

-The adventurers had placed their greatest hopes on the 
lord governor, and " his return cast a great damp of cold- 
ness into the hearts of all." The abandonment of the 
colony was again debated by the company ; but the repre- 
sentations of Lord De la Warr, delivered in Council and 
confirmed by oath, induced them still to renew their exer- 
tions, and " that Noble Lord, assured them that notwith- 
standing his ill health, he was so far from shrinking, or 
giving over the enterprise that he was willing to lay all he 
was worth on its success, and to return to Virginia with 
all convenient expedition." He wrote to Cecil : " I dare 
bouldly say there was never more hope than at this present 
and when it shall please your Lordship I doubt not but 
to give you full satisfaction to every doubt or scandall that 
leyeth upon that country, fearing nothing less then an 
honorable and profitable end of all if it be not let fall." 
He at once made a short relation or report on his Vir- 
ginian experience to the lords and others of the Council of 



160 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Virginia, which was afterwards delivered to the general 
assembly of the said company at a court holden the 5th of 
July ; and on the 16th this relation was entered at Sta- 
tioners' Hall for publication by Sir Thomas Smythe and 
the Wardens. 

About the same time Henry Spelman wrote a relation of 
his Virginian experience, which it was not deemed advisable 
to publish. 

Within a few days the Hercules, Captain Adams, re- 
turned from Virginia, bringing news of the safe arrival 
of Sir Thomas Dale, and cheering letters from him to the 
Council for Virginia and " to the committees ; " all of 
which was fortunately encouraging to the adventurers under 
the circumstances then existino-. 

Captain Matthew Somers arrived in England in the 
Patience, from the Bermuda or Somers Islands, about Au- 
gust 5, with the body of Sir George Somers, whose will 
(after some legal proceedings) was recorded on August 26. 

July 17, the king of Spain wrote from Madrid to Ve- 
lasco, his ambassador in England, instructing him to send 
two Catholic spies on the first ship sailing to Virginia, 
directing; them to brino- him an exact account of all that is 
going on there. August 22, Velasco wrote to his king- 
that he would send a trustworthy person by the first ship 
that may sail for Virginia. He also tells Philip III. of the 
return of De la Warr ; of the disasters in Virginia ; of the 
English purpose to take possession of and to erect a fort 
on the Bermudas, etc. 

August 26, " A ballad called The last newes from Vir- 
ginia " was entered at Stationers' Hall for publication. I 
have not found a copy. 

Late in the summer, or early in the fall, the Elizabeth 
arrived in England, as a private " Aviso " from Dale to the 
Virginia Council, telling them of the arrival of the Spanish 
ship at Point Comfort, etc. As soon as possible, w4th the 
especial assistance of Sir Edward Cecil, Sir Eobert Mansel, 
and others, the John and Francis was sent to Virginia with 
men and supplies for the colony in this emergency. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 IGl 

November 11, " The Tempest " was produced on the 



stage. 



November 13, the Prosperous arrived from Virginia with 
sundry letters, making public the arrival of the Spanish 
ship, the landing of the spies, etc. 

November 15, Velasco reported to his king of the arrival 
from Virginia of the ship bringing news of the Spanish 
carvel and prisoners — " sailors " as he called them. 

The fate of these men became known in Spain early in 
November, and the matter was promptly brought before 
the Spanish Council of War. November 12, Hugh Lee 
wrote from Madrid to Thomas Wilson, secretary to the 
Earl of Salisbury, about the affair. The next day (13th) 
the Duke of Lerma, under advice from Philip III., wrote to 
Secretary Arostequi that Velasco should be instructed to 
obtain the liberty of these men as soon as possible. The 
next day (14th) Digby, the English ambassador in Spain, 
wrote to Cecil about the affair; and the next day (15th) 
Philip HI. himself wrote to Velasco about it. As soon as 
this letter was received on December 7, Velasco wrote to 
the English Privy Council on the subject, and the Earl of 
Salisbury replied to him that they would return the Spanish 
prisoners as soon as they received the English pilot. 

December 14, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : " The 
Spanish ambassador was sent for lately before the [English 
Privy] Council, where it was roundly told him what crim- 
inal wrongs, and injustice our nation was stiU offered in 
Spain, with this conclusion, that if there was not present 
redress, the King was fully minded to recall his ambas- 
sador, etc. . . . 

" The Earl of Southampton's journey into Spain is laid 
aside, and the ceremony of condoling [on the recent death 
of the queen of Spain] shall be left to the ambassador 
resident there." 

Some time prior to December 19, John Moore wrote from 
London to Winwood, ^' there are some fears among the 
weaker sort of some foreign [Spanish] attempts on Virginia 



162 UNDER THE COMPANY 

and Ireland ; " but that "no care had been taken to supply 
Sir Thomas Dale with the 2,000 men whom he demand- 
eth." 

December 23, Sir Edward Cecil entered for publication 
at Stationers' Hall " The Virginian Laws." These laws, as 
published, it seems had been compiled by William Strachey, 
who returned from Virginia on the Elizabeth with private 
advices. There are several copies of this tract in the British 
Museum. The " Grenville " copy was presented to Sir An- 
thony Archer by the author, who has written under the 
printed address : " Ever to honour your free and noble 
Disposition, William Strachey." Another copy has inserted 
opposite its title a manuscript address : " To the Reverend ; 
and right worthy the Title of a Devine, who in so sacred 
an Expedition as is the reduction of Heathen to the Know- 
ledg of the ever-living true God, stands up, the only unsat- 
isfyed and firm Freinde of all that possess, and sit in so 
holy a Place ; Wm. Crashawe minister in the Middle Tem- 
ple, William Strachey, somtyme a Personall servaunt and 
now a Beadsman, for that christian Colonic settling in Vir- 
ginia Britania ; wisheth full accomplishment of all Good- 
ness, and to that Plantation all happiness, and reall (and if 
it may be, Royall) Freindes." This copy is dedicated " to 
the Council of Virginia, the Lord La Warr, and Sir Thomas 
Smith." Other copies of this (the London) edition are in- 
scribed to " the Lords of the Councell of Virginea." I 
have seen it stated that there was an Oxford edition, but 
I have never seen a copy of this. 

Prior to December 24, James I. sent Velasco word by 
Cecil that he would have the Spanish prisoners put on 
Spanish soil, and set entirely free, if the king of Spain 
would likewise liberate the Eno-lish then detained on the 
galleys and in prisons, on which day Velasco reported these 
things to his king, and advised a favorable answer. A few 
days after this, Newport, in the Starr, returned from Vir- 
ginia, bringing the first news of the arrival of Sir Thomas 
Gates in Virginia, and of the death of his wife in the West 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 163 

Indies while on the voyage to Virginia. Five other ships 
returned from Virginia before the following May. 

December 23, Digby wrote from Madrid to Salisbury re- 
lative to Clark, the English pilot taken from Virginia by 
the Spaniards, and asking for directions. 

January 6, 1612, Philip III. wrote to Velasco : " I shall 
order the Virginia Pilot, who is in the Havannah to be 
brought here, so that he may be surrendered when they 

hand over to us the three Spanish sailors, who are kept in 

V. . ,, 
n'ginia. 

The charter (already granted) which finally passed the 
seals March 22, authorized a lottery for Virginia, and at a 
Virginia quarter court, held February 15, the lottery was 
taken in hand, and also the erecting of an under-company 
for the trade of the Bermudas. Early in the month this 
island had been first christened " Virginiola " as a member 
of that (the Virginia) plantation, but it was now lastly re- 
solved to call it " the Sommer Island," as weU in respect 
" of the continual temporal air, as in remembrance of Sir 
George Sommers that died there." March 5, Sir Thomas 
Smythe entered for publication " A booke or thinge called 
the Publication of the Lottery for Virginia." This was 
probably a circular or broadside for distribution in the in- 
terest of the proposed lottery, the sale of tickets, etc. 

February 12, Digby wrote from Madrid to Salisbury rela- 
tive to the rumor of an expedition from Spain and Portugal 
probably against Virginia, — the same expedition, proba- 
bly, as that which came into the Downs, February 20, on 
the way to the Low Countries. 

February 25, Philip wrote from Madrid to Velasco, ask- 
ing for particular information about the Virginia enterprise 
and urging him to send spies on board the English ship to 
Virginia, " since this seems to be the best way to ascertain 
the nature of that enterprise." I do not know when these 
letters reached England, but probably within ten or twenty 
days. 

About the 8th of March two shijDS (one for the Bermu- 



164 UNDER THE COMPANY 

das, and the Sarah for Virgmia) sailed from England with 
supplies. And soon after this Harley and Hobson returned 
from North Virginia, bringing some savages from " the 
river of Canada," which were shown in London for a won- 
der. 

The men who had deserted Hudson, when they reached 
England in October, 1611, succeeded in convincing many 
that they had found the long looked-for Northwest Pas- 
sage. In December, Sir Dudley Digges and others were 
preparing ships to be ready by sjjring, as if there were no 
doubt or difficulty at all in the matter. The Prince of 
Wales, the patron of Virginia, was also the patron and 
protector of this new discovery. And Digby wrote from 
Madrid to Salisbury that " the Spaniards were much trou- 
bled with the bruit of the new discovery of the North-West 
Passage, which is very distasteful to them." 

Early in March, 1612, Digges published his " Treatise 
of the North West Passage." In it he comjiutes the world 
at the greatest compass to be 360° or 24 hours (the sun 
passes 300 leagues or 900 miles per hour), or 7,200 leagues 
or 21,600 miles — growing less to the north and south 
of the equinoctial. He estimates " from the Meridian of 
the Canaries westward to Jamaica, or to keep our paralell 
to Virginia, by several Eclipses, observed by several men 
there hath been found a difference of near 60 degrees or 4 
Howers." From the Canaries " in the Paralell of 37 to 
the farthest partes of China," 225° or 15 hours. In 
this great over-estimate of about 79°, he has been misled 
by the old computations which he quotes. From China 
to Drake's Nova Albion he places at 69°, an underesti- 
mate of about 38° ; so that, as he thought, the remainder 
was about 6° or 360 Eng-lish miles between Viroiuia and 
Nova Albion, a mistake of about 41°. " For confirmation 
whereof, let us remember that the Indians in Virginiaa con- 
tinually assure our people, that 12 Daies journie westward 
from the Fals, they have a sea, where they have sometimes 
seen such ships as ours." And finally he writes : " for 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 165 

anything we yet can hear, no one voyage to the contrary, 
we see not but we may conclude, that the Fludcle our peo- 
ple mette [m Hudson's Bay] came from the Southern Sea, 
and till we hear more authentical reasons than of Feare 
grounded on false Gardes ; beleeve that our Industry, by 
God's grace, may this next voyage manifest the prophesie 
of Baptista Ramusius, touching the North-West Passage." 

" This next voyage " sailed in April under Captain 
Thomas Button, with Francis Nelson as master of his ship. 

The second company charter petitioned for was probably 
granted by the king before the enrolling of the names be- 
gan in November, 1610. The warrant for preparing it was 
issued by the secretary of state, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salis- 
bury ; it was prepared by the attorney-general. Sir Henry 
Hobart, and the solicitor-general. Sir Francis Bacon ; 
passed under the great seal by the lord chancellor, Sir 
Thomas Egerton, and signed by King James I. March 22, 
1612. Obtaining subscribers had been slow work ; it had 
been " kept open " a long time for their names, and it may 
be that some alterations had been made from the original 
petition. It seems that the lottery clause had not been 
added until after the difficulty of sustaining the colony by 
subscription was evident. Although it was not a legal in- 
strument until the king had signed it, the Virginia Company 
must have been strengthened all the while by the know- 
ledge that the king had granted their petition. 

Like the first comjDany charter (1609), this was and is a 
most important document. It extended the boundary so as 
to include all the islands lying ^dthin 300 leagues of the 
continent, between 30° and 4:1° north latitude, under cer- 
tain conditions. It admitted the additional adventurers 
and enrolled their names in the charter as had been done 
in the first, so " that posterity may hereafter know who have 
adventured and not been sparing of their purses in such a 
noble and generous action for the general good of their 
■country."^ Under the charter of 1609 (Art. XI.), the 

^ For brief sketches of most of see The Genesis of the United States, 
those named iu these two charters, Index references and pp. 811-1070. 



166 UNDER THE COMPANY 

company in their assemblies had chosen sundry councilors 
by the voice of the greater part of the company, and had 
been holding weekly courts of the company, which acts 
were ratified by Arts. VI. and VII. of this charter ; which 
also, in Art. VIII., greatly strengthened Arts. XIII. and 
XIV. of the 1609 charter by authorizing " The four great 
and General Courts of the Council and Company of Ad- 
venturers for Virginia," " for the handling, ordering, and 
disposing of matters and affairs of greater weight and im- 
portance, and such, as shall or may, in any sort, concern 
the Weal Publick and general good of the said Company 
and Plantation, as namely the Manner of Government from 
time to time to be used, the ordering and disposing of the 
Lands and Possessions, and the settling and establishing of 
a Trade there, or such like." These " great, general, and 
solemn Assemblies " were to be held " every year, uj^on the 
last Wednesday, save one, of Hillary Term, Easter, Trinity, 
and Michaelmas Terms, forever." " The said Treasurer 
and Company, or the greater number of them, so assem- 
bled, shall and may have full Power and Authority, from 
time to time, and at all times hereafter, to elect and chuse 
discreet Persons, to be of our said Council for the said 
first Colony in Virginia, and to nominate and appoint 
such officers, as they shaU think fit and requisite, for the 
Government, Managing, Ordering, and Dispatching of the 
Affairs of the said Company; And shall likewise have full 
Power and Authority, to ordain and make such Laws and 
Ordinances, for the Good and Welfare of the said Planta- 
tion, as to them, from time to time, shall be thought requi- 
site and meet : So always, as the same be not contrary to 
the Laws and Statutes of this our Realm of England," that 
is, not inconsistent with the English Constitution. This 
Article, and Articles XL, XIIL, XIV., and XXIL, of the 
charter of 1609, may be called the entermg wedges of 
American hberty, the heralds of our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The constant aim of Sir Edwin Sandys was 
evidently to make the charters gradually more and more 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 167 

popular and favorable to the company and colony. The 
encouragement Article (XIV.) in the charter of 1606 per- 
mitted the company to transport " goods, chattels, armour, 
munition and furniture needful to be used by the colo- 
nists " free of duty for seven years from April, 1606 ; 
while the encouragement Article (XI.) in this charter 
permitted the company to transport " shipping, armour, 
weapons, ordinance, munition, powder, shot, victuals, all 
manner of merchandises, etc., aU manner of clothing, im- 
plements, etc., and all other things necessary for the said 
plantation etc., and in passing and returning to and from, 
without paying or yielding any subsidy, custom, or imposi- 
tion, either inward or outward, or any other duty, to us, 
our heirs, or successors, for the same, for the space of seven 
years from the date of these presents " (March 22, 1612, to 
March 22, 1619). 

The charter granted the company many other privileges, 
one of the most important being the authorization of lot- 
teries for the benefit of the colony, and making it lawful 
for the company to " publish the schemes of their Lot- 
teries." This was probably the " booke or thinge " entered 
for publication on March 5. 

April 1, Philip III. wrote to Velasco that he had received 
an account of the Virginian enterprise from "a person 
zealous to serve me,^ which treats of the serious troubles 
likely to arise if the English get a footing in that region ; " 
and ordering Velasco to " act with dispatch in all that con- 
cerns this matter." April 14, Velasco reports to his king 
the sailing of two ships to Virginia, and the proposal to 
send eight ships and about one thousand men, " in the last 
days of this month," in which ships he would send a suit- 
able person for a Spanish spy, if one could be found. 

April 18, Sir Edwin Sandys wrote to the mayor and 
jurates of Sandwich, calling on them for their subscrip- 
tion, and sending them "the proclamation" concerning the 
Vu-ginia lottery, "a book" of instructions about it, and 

1 Who was this ? 



168 UNDER THE COMPANY 

asking their furtlierance of it. "Presuming greatly of 
your affectionate rediness to aid and advance so wortliie 
an enterprise tending so greatly to the enlargement of the 
Christian truth, the honor of our nation, and benefit of 
English people, as by God's assistance the sequell in short 
time will manifest." 

May 7, Richard Moore was commissioned by the under- 
company for the Somers Islands, as deputy-governor, and 
embarked on the Plough the next day. " Sir Thomas 
Smythe was then Governor, and Master William Canning 
the deputie-governor of this Company." 

May 9, the Grocers Company adventure <£62 10s in the 
lottery for Virginia. For some cause the drawing had to 
be put off, and on May 26, Sir Thomas Smythe had entered 
for publication a broadside, probably by the Council of Vir- 
ginia, " touchinge the deferringe of the Lotterye." Five 
days before this Master Welby had entered for publication 
" under the hands of Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Dudley 
Digges, Master Robert Johnson and the Wardens, The 
Lotterys best prize, declaring the former successe and pre- 
sent estate of Virginia's Plantation." This tract, generally 
known as " The New Life of Virginia," first gives an ac- 
count of events up to the last sailing of Sir Thomas Gates, 
secondly, '' of the present estate of the businesse," and 
" the third doth tend as a premonition to the planters 
and adventurers for the time to come." ^ The official pub- 
Hcations issued in the interest of the enterprise are not ex- 
pected to give information which might injure it, and 
the historian has to regard them as partisan evidence of a 
friendly character ; but they reveal to us some of the lines 
along which the managers worked, some of the troubles 
which they had to meet, some of their objects or ideas of 
the present and hopes for the future, and along these lines 
they must be regarded as authentic evidence of the highest 
value. They are in every way preferable as evidence to 
those issued in the interest of a person ; as a criticism, or 

^ See Force's Tracts, vol. i., no. vii. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1611 — JUNE 3, 1612 169 

other partisan evidence of an unfriendly character. This 
tract was written by Robert Johnson, the deputy-treasurer 
for Virginia, and dedicated to Sir Thomas Smythe, " gov- 
ernour of the Moscovia and East India companies, one of 
his Majesties Counsell for Virginia and Treasurer for the 
Colony." To him Johnson writes : " It is come to pass 
(right worshipful) with the business and plantation of Vir- 
ginea, as it is commonly seen in the attempt and progress 
of all other most excellent things (which is) to be accom- 
pained with manifold difficulties, crosses and disasters, being 
such as are appointed by the highest Providence, as an ex- 
ercise of patience and other vertues, and to make more wise 
thereby the managers thereof. . . . For which cause (right 
noble Knight) I have set myself to publish this brief apo- 
logy to the sight and view of all men, not to answer any 
such in their particular folly, but to free the name itself 
from the injurious scoff^er, and this commendable enterprise 
from the scorne and derision of any such, as by ignorance 
or mahce have sought the way to wrong it. Which albeit 
I am well assured will no way avail to admonish or amend 
the incorrigible looseness of such untamed tongues, yet 
shall I hold mine endevours well acquited, if I may but 
free yourself, and so many right noble, and well afl^ected 
gentlemen (touching the former ill success) from wrongfuU 
imputation, as also satisfie the despairing thoughts, and 
quicken the zeal of the friends and lovers to this business. 
. . . And this I offer to the patronage of your worship 
alone, being the chiefest patron of this and of many more 
worthie services ; wherein I presume not any way to coun- 
sell or direct your wisdom in your further proceedings, 
whom long experience in Common-wealth affairs (besides 
that abilitie and wisdom of mind infused by God) hath made 
most able and sufficient of yourself to direct many others, 
but as wishing hereby (if I might in some measure) to ease 
the burthen of your mind, under the wise and painfull man- 
aging of your many publike actions : for which I pray that 
God will please, to continue still your health and strength 



170 UNDER THE COMPANY 

of body, with answerable success, to your honest, wise, and 
most approved desires." 

This tract states that Captain Argall was then ready to 
sail with two ships, and that the lord governor himself was 
preparing to go again in person. Argall did sail soon after 
in one ship ; but the statement, as a whole, was probably 
issued for the purpose of misleading, as it is evident that 
the Spanish ambassadors were constantly fed with reports 
of large expeditions preparing for Virginia. 

May 30, the Easter term quarter court of the Virginia 
ComjDany was held, but I have not found any particular 
record of their proceedings. 

April 28, Digby wrote from Madrid to the Earl of Salis- 
bury relative to the appointment of Zuniga as ambassador 
extraordinary to England. " It is thought that he will be 
directed to use many instances unto his Majesty, for the 
removing of the Plantation in Virginia, and which they 
thinke lit first to assay by fair means and intreaty to his 
Majesty, tho' I should be sorry, in the mean time, they 
should be trusted ; for that I know, they have had many 
consultations for the supplanting of our men. But I can- 
not learn, that there is any particular Resolution taken 
therein, but that in generall it is concluded, that our setting 
there is not to be permitted." This was probably the last 
letter received by Cecil from Madrid relative to Virginia ; 
he died on June 3, 1612. He was the constant and faith- 
ful friend of the Virginia enterprise from the first begin- 
ning to his own death. And, save for him, it was then said 
that this enterprise (of which he was the patron) must have 
been abandoned as was that of Sir John Popham. 



X 

VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1612 — MAY, 1613 
SIR THOMAS GATES, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR 

About March 8, 1612, two ships sailed from England, 
one for the Bermudas, the other, the Sarah (probably the 
Sarah Constant of 1606), for Virginia, with men and sup- 
plies. She probably arrived in June, but I have found no 
detailed account of the voyage. She brought the news 
that the second company charter had been signed and 
sealed. She sailed from the colony about August 7, tak- 
ing among other things the usual official letters (now miss- 
ing) and Whitaker's " Good Newes from Virginia," with his 
letter from the new town (Henrico) to Sir Thomas Smythe, 
in which he writes : " The God of heaven and earth crown 
your undaunted spirit with his heavenly reward. And Let 
the beautie of the Lord our God be upon us ; and direct 
thou the workes of our hands upon us, even direct thou our 
handle workes." The first portion of his "Good Newes" is 
a sermon or appeal for Virginia based on the text, " Cast 
Thy bread upon the Waters : for after many dales thou 
shalt finde it." The second portion is a description of the 
people and of the land of Virginia. He says : " The natu- 
rall people of the Land are generallie such as you heard 
of before. A people to be feared of those that come upon 
them without defensive Armour, but otherwise faint-hearted 
(if they see their Arrowes cannot pearce) and easie to be 
subdued. Shirts of Male, or quilted cotton coates are the 
best defence against them." 

The knightly ideas of the feudal times gave way under 
James I., and the use of armor declined in England ; but 
the old armors were burnished up and made use of in 



172 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Virginia against the Indians from the beginning of the 
colony ; armorers were sent over to keep them in repair, 
being glad to go, as there was little work for them to do in 
England. The armor used by the colonists consisted of 
" head pieces " of sundry sorts ; coats of mail, of steel, and 
of plate ; quilted coats, buff coats, jacks or jackets, and 
corselets, with an occasional " targit." 

Indian arrows would not pierce English armor ; in order 
to kill the colonists, the Indians resorted from the first to 
their natural cunning, and by one device or another they 
were constantly " cutting them off." 

The powder-arms of the English (besides the heavy guns 
of the forts) were snaphaunce-pieces, matchlocks, muskets, 
pistols, and petronels ; their side-arms were swords, rapiers, 
hangers, and daggers. 

In this year Jeffery Abbott and others, attempting to 
run away "in a barge and a shallop [all the boats that 
were then in the colony] and therein to adventure their 
lives for their native country, being discovered and pre- 
vented, were shot to death, hanged and broken upon the 
wheel." They were guilty of two capital crimes — deser- 
tion and carrying off the boats. About the same time 
Marshal Dale drove the Appomattox Indians from their 
habitation between the Curies of James River and the Ap- 
pomattox, being determined to possess the boundary and 
to plant there. These two events took place in 1612, after 
May ; but the exact date is unknown to me. 

Captain Samuel Argall, who had sailed from the coast 
of England, August 2, 1612, in the Treasurer, to remain 
some time in Virginia, and to displant the French colony 
in New England, arrived at Point Comfort, September 27, 
vdth all his men in good health, the number being sixty- 
two, and all his victuals very well conditioned ; where, by 
the discreet and provident government of Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Gates, " and great pains and hazard " of Marshal 
Dale, he found both the colony and the colonists in far 
better estate than the report was by such as came home in 
Sir Robert Mansfield's ship. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1612 — MAY, 1613 173 

Newport had succeeded Sir George Somers as admiral 
of Virginia, but he was afterwards appointed one of the 
six masters of the royal navy, and Argall then succeeded 
him as admiral of Virginia, to remain in the colony, etc. 

During the next six weeks, among other things. Admiral 
Argall under Marshal Dale was pursuing the Indians in 
Nansemond River for their corn, of which they got a good 
quantity ; at which time the marshal " escaped killing very 
narrowly." 

In November Argall, by the advice of Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Gates, carried Sir Thomas Dale to the eastern shore, 
to " Sir Thomas Smith's Island," to have his opinion about 
inhabiting it, who, after three days' march in discovering 
it, approved very well of the place, especially because of 
the abundance of fish there. 

In December, 1612, and January, 1613, Argall was trad- 
ing with his old friend the king of Pastancy, in Pembroke 
and Potomac rivers, where he obtained 1400 bushels of 
corn ; and leaving Captain Webb, Ensign Swift, Robert 
Sparkes, and two boys, as hostages in the place of sundry 
Indians taken by him in token of a peace concluded with 
divers Indian lords, he arrived at Point Comfort, February 
11, 1613. 

According to the information given to Velasco, when the 
ship Sarah, which sailed from Virginia in August, 1612, 
left, " the Indians were holding the colonists in such strict 
confinement that they could not leave their forts to obtain 
provisions without running great danger." And in July, 
1613, " he thought that the people must have perished." 
With " the generallity " in England this period was the 
darkest hour in the life of the colony ; but the managers 
held their faith in Gates and Dale and Argall. It was not 
in their plan to send any large number of people until 
those who had become acclimated had had time to prepare 
the ground and make ready to receive them, and they could 
not have been really expecting any ships from Virginia. 
In the colony, destiny was shaping its ends. John Rolfe 



174 UNDER THE COMPANY 

was taking the pains to plant, tend, and cure the first crop 
of tobacco for export ever made by an Englishman in Vir- 
ginia.^ And this " vile weed," as some called it then and 
now, was in a few years to make Virginia self-supporting, 
and in time, to all intents, an El Dorado. 

March 29, 1613, Argall, in the Treasurer, left Point 
Comfort for Pembroke (Rappahannock) River, and dis- 
covered it to the head, which is about sixty-five leagues 
into the land. He marched into the country, where he saw 
many buffalo (" cattle as big as kine "), and discovered 
sundry mines. " Whilst he was in this business, he was 
told by certain Indians, that the Great Powhatans daugh- 
ter Pokahuntis was with the great King Patowomeck, where 
he presently repaired, resolving to possess himself of her by 
any stratagem that he could use, for the ransoming of so 
many Englishmen as were prisoners with Powhatan ; as 
also to get such arms and tools as he and other Indians 
had got by murther and stealing from the English, with 
some quantitie of corn, for the Colonies rehef." 

Soon after arriving in the Potomac, with the aid of "the 
king of Pastancy," ^ Argall succeeded in having the Indian 
princess delivered on board the Treasurer. And as soon as 
this was done, he sent an Indian messenger to Powhatan, to 
let him know that his daughter was a prisoner, and to tell 
him that if he would send home the Englishmen whom he 
detained in slavery, and such arms and tools as the Indians 
had stolen, and also a great quantity of corn, then he 
should have his daughter restored ; otherwise not. 

" This newes much grieved this great King, yet, without 
delay, he returned the messenger with this answer : That 
he desired Argall to use his daughter well and bring the 
ship into his river, and there he would comply with the 
demands, and they should be friends." 

Having received this answer, Argall presently departed 

^ I have not been able to locate the ^ Passapatancy is in King George 
spot of ground on which this crop was County, Virginia. 
cultivated. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1612 — MAY, 1613 175 

from the Potomac, on April 23, and repaired with all speed 
to Lieutenant-Governor Gates at Jamestown, to deliver to 
him the prisoner Pocahontas, so that he could conclude this 
peace with Powhatan on his own terms and on his own 
res23onsibility. 

Within a few days after her delivery to Gates, her father 
sent home toward her ransom seven Englishmen, also three 
snaphaunce-pieces, one broad axe, a long whip-saw, and 
one canoe of corn, with sundry excuses, to which Gates 
replied, " That his daughter was very well and kindly in- 
treated, and so should be, howsoever he dealt with us ; but 
we could not believe that the rest of our arms were either 
lost or stolen from him, and therefore, till he returned them 
all, we would not by any meanes deHver his daughter." 

This answer, sent to him in May, 1613, " pleased him 
not very well, for we heard no more from him till March, 
1614." 

Sir Thomas Dale, as marshal, had special charge of the 
prisoners, and he took an especial interest in Powhatan's 
daughter, causing her to be carefully instructed in the 
Protestant religion. 

It is interesting to note that at this time there was " a 
gentleman from Venice " in Virginia, a convert to Protes- 
tantism, who, under the instruction of the Alcayde Diego de 
Molina (one of Dale's security prisoners, or hostages per- 
force), was restored to his first religion, the Roman Catho- 
lic ; Molina also claimed to have made proselytes of several 
of the English colonists. Although a prisoner, he seems 
to have been as active for his religion as Dale was for his. 

Argall, " being quit of his prisoner," went forward with 
the building of the frigate which he had left at Point 
Comfort, and finished her. He then put the Treasurer in 
charge of his master to be fitted for his intended fishing 
voyage. And, while some of his men were fortifying at 
the point, others building a fishing-boat, and others fishing 
at Cape Charles for the relief of the men at Henrico, Argall 
himself, on May 11, went in his shallop to discover the east 



176 UNDER THE COMPANY 

side of the bay ; noting the many small rivers, harbors for 
boats and barges, islands, etc., he thought that salt might 
easily be made there, and found " great store of fish, both 
shelfish and other. So having discovered along the shore 
some forty leagues northward, I returned to my ship. May 
22, and hasted forward my business left in hand at my 
departure ; and fitted up my ship, and built my fishing boat, 
and made ready to take the first opportunity of the wind 
for my fishing voyage, of which I beseeched God of his 
mercy to bless us." So Argall wrote in his letter as then 
published ; but he was not really going on a " fishing 
voyage." He had been ordered to drive the French Jesuits 
from North Virginia, and he " beseeched God of his mercy 
to bless " the effort which they were now ready to make 
in the execution of that order. 



XI 

ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 

JAMES I. ACTING AS HIS OWN PBIME MINISTER 

On June 18, 1612, Velasco reported to his king that 
the English were preparing to settle and to fortify the Ber- 
mudas. 

June 6, Philip III. wrote to Velasco approving his plan 
of sending spies to Virginia ; the letter probably reached 
England within two weeks. Because Spain did not go to 
war with England it has been said that " the opposition of 
Spain to the plantation of Virginia amounted to nothing ; " 
but war with Spain was exactly what was wanted in Eng- 
land, and war is not the only obstacle which nations can im- 
pose. The modes of opposition pursued by the Spaniards 
were really more perplexing to the company, and more apt 
to succeed with James I., than open war. 

In the Chalmers Papers it is written that " Lord Digby 
wrote several letters from Madrid on June 9,^ where he 
was Ambassador, informing the English Ministers of the 
Spanish consultations about Virginia — that they would 
remove the planters by force if they did not think that the 
colony would be deserted." 

Not yet knowing of Salisbury's death, Digby wrote to him 
from Madrid on June 30 : " They are very much displeased 
with our new discovery of the Northwest passage ; but more 
particularly with our plantation in Virginia." They threat- 
ened if James I. did not recall the colony that Spain would 
be obliged to assay the removal of it by force. " And I 
hear that Don Pedro de Zuiiiga hath commission [from 
Philip III.] to move his Majesty [James I.] that his subjects 

1 I have not found these letters. 



178 UNDER THE COMPANY 

may desist from any farther proceeding therein. If he 
have, I doubt not but he will receive a cold answer. And 
for their doing anything by the way of hostility, I con- 
ceive they will be very slow to give England (who is very 
apt to lay hold on any occasion) so just a pretence to be 
doing with them." This had been the real obstacle in the 
way of Spain's attempting to remove the colony from Vir- 
ginia by the " strong hand " from the first. She had not 
forgotten the ravages of Drake, Hawkins, Somers, New- 
port, and others in the time of Elizabeth. The cargo of 
the Madre de Dios, carried to Dartmouth by Captain Chris- 
topher Newport, in 1592, was worth much more to Spain 
than the whole of the Engflish claim in America then was.^ 
In the case of war, which the English were anxious for, 
Henry, Prince of Wales, and patron of Virginia, had al- 
ready expressed the wish to command the English fleet 
against the Spanish West Indies. 

WilUam Strachey wrote his " Historic of Travaile into 
Virofinia Britania " about this time. In his letter to Sir 
Allen Apsley he refers favorably to the " late " discourse 
on the Northwest Passage by Sir Dudley Digges. 

Louis XIII. of France granted to Madame de Guerche- 
ville, the protectress of the Jesuit missions, all the territory 
of North America from the St. Lawrence to Florida, and 
she was sending her missionaries to this region, which was 
the Virginia of the English. We have seen that the 
Grace of God, with Father Biard on board, had been at 
Newport, England, in February, 1611, and that the account 
of the Spaniards in Virginia reached England in the au- 
tumn of 1611. These things were duly considered in the 
Virginia courts, and at the Trinity term of the Virginia 
quarter court, July 11, 1612, Captain Samuel Argall was 
appointed admiral of Virginia and commissioned to remain 
in Virg-inia and to drive out foreio^n intruders from the 
country granted to Englishmen by the three patents of 
James I. He soon sailed from London in the Treasurer, 

^ Genesis of the United States, pp. 4-28. 



ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 179 

well equipped for carrying out his commission. He sailed 
from the coast of England on August 2. While he was in 
Dover Road, about July 14, the Trial, in which ship Cap- 
tain George Percy returned from Virginia, passed him. 

July 9 to July 30, the great lottery was being drawn in 
a new-built house at the west end of St. Paul's. Cities, 
towns, churches, companies, and all classes of people were 
drawing lots. A second lottery was at once taken in hand. 

July 15, our old enemy Zuiiiga, who had been created 
Marques de Villa Flores and sent to England as ambassa- 
dor extraordinary to offer the hand of Philip III., king of 
Spain, to the Princess Elizabeth of England and to treat 
about Virginia, had his first audience with King James, who 
appointed July 20 as the day, and Whitehall as the place 
for receiving his message. On July 19, Chamberlain Avrote : 
" It is generally looked for that he will expostulate about 
our planting in Virginia, wherein there will need no great 
contestation, seeing it is to be feared that that action will 
fall to the ground of itself, by the extreme beastly idleness 
of our nation, which ( not- with-stan ding any cost or dili- 
gence used to support them) will rather die and starve then 
be brought to any labor or industry to maintain themselves. 
Two or three of the last ships that came thence bring no- 
thing but discomfort, and that Sir Thomas Gates and Sir 
Thomas Dale are quite out of heart, and to mend the mat- 
ter not past five days since here arrived a ship [the Trial] 
with ten men (who being sent forth to fish for their relief 
and having taken great store) have given them the slip and 
run away [from Virginia], and fill the town [London] with 
ill reports, which will hinder that business more then the 
Lottery or any other art they can use for the present will 
further it, and yet they have taken good order to have 
these runaways apprehended and punished or at least sent 
back again." 

Evidently the Virginia matter was an especial part of 
Zuniga's business in England, because he (not Velasco) 
made the reports to his king on that subject so long as he 



180 UNDER THE COMPANY 

remained in London. On August 1, Archbishop Abbot, 
primate of England, wrote to James I. : " The lingering in 
England of Zuoiga is very suspicious. He has secretly dis- 
persed .£12,000 or £13,000 already in England, and tam- 
pers by night with the Lieger ambassador from France. He 
was in England at the time of the Powder treason, and 
God knows what share he had in that business." On the 
same day, Zuriiga made a report to his king on the Virginia 
enterprise, the lottery, etc., telling him that the English 
were intermarrying with the Indians, and urging him " to 
drive those people out from there." 

August 11, Calvert wrote : " Zuniga is yet here no man 
knows why, for he hath taken his leave of the King." Au- 
gust 13, Abbot again wrote to James I. about Zuiiiga, say- 
ing : " The king of S23ain has an advantage in England, 
because he can avail himself of discontented Catholics." 
August 16, Zuniga again reports on Virginia to Philip III. 
that " in order to get the footing there, which they desire 
to obtain, they will sell their own children, to put the 
Colony into the best possible condition, which even the 
well-in-formed cannot deny ! " and " What they desired was 
to make the Colony a harbor for piracy against the ship- 
ping of Spain." Finally, James I. wrote to his ambassador 
in Spain to find out the reasons for Zuiiiga' s long stay in 
England. 

A ship from Virginia reached England in September, 
1612, and the next news from that colony was not received 
until July, 1613, and this long period of suspense was 
" the darkest hour in all that time of three years disaster." 
It is not certain to me whether this ship was the John and 
Francis, the Sarah, or the Plough, returning from the 
Bermuda Islands via Virginia. 

September 24, the Earl of Northampton wrote to James 
I., describing the " Hand of Devilles." The king, since the 
death of Cecil, had been acting as his own prime minister, 
and continued so to do for nearly two years. August 31, 
Digby reported to him from Madrid the rumor from Seville 



ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 181 

that three or four Spanish galleons, sent against the Eng- 
lish plantation in Virginia, had been cast away on the 
coast of Florida. September 11, in reply to the request of 
King James, Digby reports that Zuiiiga had three busi- 
nesses in England, and that the second was concerning Vir- 
ginia. On September 23, Digby sent to King James the 
report of an attempt shortly to be made for the removal 
of the English from Virginia. October 2, Digby wrote to 
Carleton of the Spanish intent to remove our plantation 
in Virginia. And although he had been doubtful about 
this, he now beheved that the Spaniards would serve the 
Englishmen in Virginia " as they did the Frenchmen in 
Florida." 

Without doubt Philip III. was exasperated at the refusal 
of his hand by the Princess Elizabeth, and by the continual 
refusal of James I. to recall the English at his request so 
frequently repeated ; but his interests forced him to go slow 
in this matter. His greatest enemies in England were most 
anxious for him to " attempt Virginia," as this would justify 
an attempt by the English against his rich plate fleets. 
Many of those interested in planting Virginia were really 
moved thereto by this object and with this hope in view. 

About this time a rumor reached Seville " that the Span- 
iards had overthrown our men in Virginia," and Digby had 
an audience with the Spanish secretary of state about it, 
who assured him " there was no such thine;- hitherto to their 
knowledge. But that it was true indeed that the Spaniards 
were much discontented that the plantation was permitted." 
October 20, Digby wrote to Sir Thomas Edmonds, the Eng- 
lish ambassador at Paris : " Not only the Kings gallies of 
Spain and Italy, but likewise his fleet of ships are to meet 
Don Dieofo Brochero in Portuo-al and diverse reg-iments of 
soldiers will attend him. The vulgar rumour is that these 
forces are to be used against our plantation in Virginia. 
The Councell of Haziendo have already provided a million 
for the journey." . . . 

November 3, Philip III. wrote to Velasco thanking him 



182 UNDER THE COMPANY 

for his zeal in keeping his king informed of what is going 
on in the Virginia business and charging him to continue, 
" so that here may be done whatever may appear to be 
necessary." 

November 16, Henry, Prince of Wales, the patron of 
Virginia, died. 

November 22, Digby reported to James I. about a view 
which he had had of Zuiiiga's dispatch from England : 
" That there was no cause to apprehend so much danger 
from Virginia as they did in Spaine^ there being only five 
hundred men there who had of late suffered great extrem- 
itie and miserie ; " that the first undertakers " were growne 
so weary of supplying the charge, that they were faine to 
make a generall kind of begging by the way of a Lottery ;" 
" so he held it not unlikely that the Business might sink 
of itself, since it was maintained but by these shifts." 

The Michaelmas quarter court of the Virginia Company 
was held on Wednesday, November 28, or probably on 
Wednesday, December 5, on which day the company sold 
the Somers Islands to several gentlemen " for £2,000 of 
lawfull English money." 

The third payment on the adventures of 1610 and 1611 
was now due, and the company found it hard to make col- 
lections. At least two thirds refused to pay. The general 
feehng during 1610-1612 was one of gloom, beginning with 
the return of the fleet (1609-1610), increased by the return 
of Gates (1610), of De la Warr (1611), of the Trial, in 
July, 1612, and after the death of Prince Henry the aban- 
donment of Virginia was again seriously debated. 

Digby, in his letter to Edmonds of October 20 already 
quoted, also wrote : " There is newes come bothe from 
Lisborne and Seville that the Spaniards have certainly 
overthrown our people in Virginia, with a fleet and army 
which they sent from ye Havana. And very many partic- 
ulars — both of their assaulting, and of ye English defend- 
ing — are related." Such reports as these furnished the 
basis for the statement in the French Mercury of this 



ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 183 

year : " That the Spaniards had put to the edge of the 
sword all the English in Virginia." Where the wish fa- 
thered the thought this story was believed. John Floyd, 
the celebrated Jesuit, in his reply to Crashaw's sermon of 
1610, written about this time, says : " We know (saith M. 
Crashaw) that as soon as this intent, and enterprise of our 
Nation is Known at Rome, forthwith there wiXbe a consis- 
tory called, and consideration will he had (with wit and 
policy inough) what course Tnay he taken to crosse us, and 
overturn the husiness. But if they have never a Gamaliel 
left (saith he) let me tell them (and we are willing to heare 
him for now he will speake a truth, which is a rare thing 
in him) if this worke he only of men, it loill come to naught 
of itself e without their help. Which Prophecy taken out 
of Scripture, the event hath shewed most true. But the 
other that the Pope would gather a Consistory, and imploy 
his policy against it, the world knoweth to be false ; and 
no mervaile being a prophesy devised in M. Crashawe's 
head, and uttered out of his own Spirit. And poor soul 
that dreameth the Pope would hinder him and his fellows 
from that voyage by cursing them, whom should the King's 
Majesty press to go in person, and leave his new wife, the 
man would (I dare say) take it very unkindly, and though 
the Pope should prick him on with a spurr, yet would he 
draw back." 

Floyd was particularly severe on those ministers " who 
preached Virginia," but remained in England. He writes : 
" Truly I heard a gentleman of Honour say, that he 
heard it from the Lord De-la-Ware himselfe, that making 
meanes in both Universityes to move Ministers to goe with 
him this Apostolicall journey, yet he had gotten no more 
then one ; which one as I have heard also credibly reported, 
played the man. For when a troop of some English had 
arrived in Virginia, being in great distresse, having nothing 
left to live on but a few peas, which spent they were to dig 
their dinners out of the ground ; the peas being at the fire, 
the Savages came upon them, whom the Minister exhorting 



184: UNDER THE COMPANY 

in the Lord to fight vaHantly, himself remained to be cook : 
and not to be idle whilst others were fighting, set sharply 
on the peas-pottage and devoured greedily (for he had 
fasted long against his will) that poor pittance, shewing 
himself no less valiant then they were ; who as they all 
fought for him, so did he eat for them all." But Floyd 
was not only severe on the Protestant ministers ; he has no 
good words for the emigrants to Virginia or for the move- 
ment. He was an Englishman ; but his tract is written 
from an unfriendly religious standpoint.^ 

The first edition of " Purchas his Pilo^rimao-e " had been 
entered for publication on August 17 ; the preface is dated 
" Nov. 5 " (0. S.). It probably issued from the press in 
December, shortly before the publication of the Smith 
Tracts at Oxford. An avowed motive of Purchas was to 
free the country from blame and to lay the cause of the 
" defailement " on man ; to criticise the conduct of the men 
who had been engaged in the work. Smith's Oxford Tracts 
were along similar lines, though the motive was more selfish, 
to a certain extent taking issue with " The New Life " and 
other publications of the managers. 

Since the beginning those on whom the movement was 
depending had been contending " against manifold difficul- 
ties, crosses and disasters." They were now " in this dark 
hour " subjected for the first time to criticism through the 
public press, and their " exercise of patience and other 
virtues " was to be henceforth tried by an increasing public 
opposition to their mode of managing the movement and 
method for settling Virginia, until their charter was an- 
nulled and their enterprise resumed by the Crown. 

January 17, 1613, Biondi wrote from London to Carle- 
ton, telHng him of a rumored Spanish Armada gathering ; 
" some say for Virginia, others England and others Ireland." 

1 " The overthrow of the Protest- mysticall Babell. Particularly con- 
ants Pulpit-Babels, convincing their futing W. Crashawes sermon at the 
Preachers of Lying & Rayling, to crosse," etc. 
make the Church of Rome seeme 



ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 185 

January 20, the English Privy Council ordered the 
sheriffs of the English counties to search the houses of 
recusants for arms, as they were expecting a Spanish inva- 
sion. The unfound letters of Velasco, of January 22 and 
23, may have related to these things as v^^ell as to the pre- 
parations made for Virginia, and for the marriage of the 
Palatine. January 25, Velasco reported to his king that 
Digby had informed James I. that the Spaniards were fit- 
ting out a great fleet to be sent against Vii-ginia and Ber- 
muda, and that the Enghsli were preparing five shijDS, with 
fifteen hundred men and ammunition, to reinforce those 
posts. They " will sail towards the middle of March." 

About five days thereafter the companies sent out two 
ships to the Bermudas, one of which (the Elizabeth, Cap- 
tain Adams) went on to Virginia, " warning the colonies to 
prepare with all expedition for their defence against the 
Spaniards, whom they understood ere long would visit 
them." The company had now spent many years and a 
sum equivalent to over $1,000,000 on the enterprise. Many 
saw no hope of ever reaping a profit, because so far nothing 
had been received from Virginia which it really paid to 
transport. The Spaniards were claiming the country, which 
so far had been of little benefit to them, and a war was 
threatened. Many in England desired to give over the 
country, and several letters and rumors to this effect Avent 
to Virginia by this ship. 

February 13, the Hilary term quarter court met and 
authorized a broadside relative to the Virginian lottery, 
which was published soon after. 

February 5, Sir Thomas Edmonds wrote from Paris to 
James I. regarding the Spanish fleet to be employed " this 
spring for the removing of our plantation in Virginia." 

February 24, the Princess Elizabeth married Freder- 
ick, Prince Palatine. The marriage was celebrated with 
"Masks" in which "the Virginian priests" were personated. 
John King, Bishop of London, wrote : " The festivals have 
passed, not without caution against some practise so much 



186 UNDER THE COMPANY 

prognosticated. The king shows his people that he will 
not be surprised sleeping. Rome would be mistress of the 
Church, and Spain of Nations." 

February 7, and again on the 13th, Philip III. wrote to 
Velasco urging him to hasten the release of the Spanish 
prisoners in Virginia. February 28, Digby wrote from 
Madrid to James I. inclosing a letter relative to the prepar- 
ing of the Spanish fleet ; telling him that " John Clarke 
the English Pilot," taken in Virginia, was that day " clapped 
up into close prison," and that he intended sending " a cou- 
ple of fitt persons " to enter into the Spanish naval service 
as spies. On March 15, Digby wrote again on the same 
subject. On April 1, the king of Spain wrote to Velasco 
on the Virginia matter, and (not knowing of " the hasten- 
ing of the marriage as a caution against some practise ") 
also urging him : " If you can find decent and secret 
means for it, I shall be glad for you to prevent the mar- 
riao-e of the Palatine." 

Whitaker's " Good Newes from Virginia " was pubhshed 
about this time with an " Epistle Dedicatory " by the Rev. 
William Crashaw, who soon after published Jourdan's 
" Plain Description of Bermuda." 

Father Floyd's attack seems to have aroused the Pro- 
testant ministers ; but their energy took the form of writ- 
ing up the enterprise from the standpoint of " the Defender 
of the faith," rather than of going to Virginia in person, 
as Floyd had suggested that they should do. I cannot 
find that the Oxford Tracts or the Crashaw tracts were en- 
tered for publication at Stationers' Hall ; but they probably 
received special license from James I., which was sufficient. 
The motive of all these tracts was virtually the same — to 
show that the enterprise had prospered and been brought 
to a good state of forwardness under the king's form of 
government, and that the ruin was owing to the alterations 
in the charters, etc. They mark the beginning of the 
movement in favor of the king's resuming the government, 
and that the idea received favorable consideration from 



ENGLAND, JUNE 4, 1612 — JULY, 1613 187 

the king cannot be doubted. There are many reasons why 
the ideas of the pubHcations of this period (Purchas and 
these tracts) should have found favor then ; but we can 
test the accuracy of these ideas more correctly now that we 
are free from the various motives which were influencing 
opinions at that time. And without intending to do so the 
publications of these clergymen have obscured one of the 
brightest stars in the galaxy of the history of their church. 

In April, 1613, the Martha was sent to the Bermudas. 
About the same time Christopher Brooke, Esq., began bring- 
ing suits for the Virginia Company before Lord Chancellor 
Ellesmere against the delinquent adventurers. 

May 13, " the last day of bringing in any money " to 
the Virginia lottery, was a preparative court of the com- 
pany. On the same day the Muscovy fleet sailed, and two 
days after the Easter quarter court met. May 13, Ed- 
monds again wrote from Paris to James I. about the Span- 
ish fleet " to be employed for removing our plantation in 
Virginia," and again on May 7. 

April 30, the Spanish Council of State consulted over the 
dispatches of Velasco, relative to the Spanish prisoners in 
Virginia. The report of the consultation reached England 
late in May, about the time of the return of the ship from 
the Bermudas. May 30, Velasco sent his king a report on 
the return of this ship, with a description of the island. 
He tells the king that they had not heard from Virginia 
for several months, and it was thought that famine and the 
Indians had made an end of the English colony. Philip 
III. wrote to Velasco on May 19, and again on the 23d, 
relative to the exchange of the Spanish prisoners in Vir- 
ofinia. 

Digby wrote from Spain to James I. on May 23, to 
Carleton June 1, and to Sir Thomas Lake June 5, relative 
to the Virginia enterprise, and in each of these letters 
stated that the Spaniards, owing to their advertisements 
from England, were in great hope that the business would 
fall of itself. On June 14, he wrote again to James I., 



188 UNDER THE COMPANY 

inclosing to him "the secret Instructions, relative to Vir- 
ginia and other matters," to Gondomar, one of the ablest 
diplomats in the Spanish service, who had been recently 
appointed to succeed Velasco, at London, in the manage- 
ment of these matters. 

June 26, the Trinity quarter court met, but the records 
are wanting. 

July 12, Velasco reported to his king regarding his 
efforts about the exchange of prisoners. He said James I. 
had ordered a letter to be written to the governor of Vir- 
ginia to send the Spanish prisoners to England, which let- 
ter had been sent to Virginia by the Elizabeth ; " but now 
for more than nine months no news of it have been re- 
ceived, and according to the last reports it is believed that 
the people in Virginia must have perished, partly from the 
disease to which the country is subject, and partly from 
starvation, with which they were threatened, as the Indians 
kept them so closely besieged, that they could not come 
out from the fort to obtain provisions. Thus this planta- 
tion has lost much ground, as it was sustained by companies 
of merchants, who were disappointed at finding no gold nor 
silver mines, nor the passage to the South Sea, which they 
had hoped for. They now fix their eyes upon the colony 
in Bermuda," etc. 



XII 

VIRGINIA, MAY, 1613 — FEBRUARY, 1614 

SIB THOMAS GATES, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR 

About the last of January, 1613, the Elizabeth, Captain 
Adams, was sent to Virginia, ^' with men and supplies," via 
the Bermudas, to warn the colonists " to prepare with all 
expedition for their defence against the Spaniards, whom 
they understood e'er long would visit them." The ship 
reached Point Comfort on May 24, where Argall was busy 
with his preparations. Being sent as an " Adviso," she 
was to return as soon as possible. 

May 28, the Alcayde Molina wrote to Velasco, the Span- 
ish minister in England, a secret letter, to be sent by " the 
gentleman from Venice," who was going to return on the 
ship, and whom Molina introduced to the ambassador " as 
being a person perfectly trustworthy, whose account of 
affairs in Virginia could be relied on. The gentleman 
desired to go to Spain and to make amends for his past 
transgression by revealing to Philip III. the status of the 
English colony in Virginia." 

From the beginning the enterprise had been a heavy 
expense on the promoters, and after the death of Prince 
Henry there was a growing desire in England to give over 
the country, and letters and rumors to this effect had 
reached Virginia by this ship. Although Dale himself 
felt the death of Prince Henry (as will be seen by his let- 
ter to the Rev. Dr. Mochet, sent from Virginia by Captain 
Argall in June, 1614), in reply to these reports he wrote 
to Sir Thomas Smith at this time (June, 1613), as follows : 
" Let me tell you all at home this one thing, and I pray 
you remember it ; if you give over this country and loose 



190 UNDER THE COMPANY 

it, you, with your wisdoms, will leap such a gudgeon as our 
state hath not done the like since they lost the Kingdom 
of France ; be not gulled with the clamorous report of base 
people ; believe Caleb and Joshua ; if the glory of God 
have no power with them and the conversion of these poor 
infidels, yet let the rich mammon's desire Ggge them on to 
inhabit these countries. I protest unto you, by the faith 
of an honest man, the more I range the country the more 
I admire it. I have seen the best countries in Europe ; I 
protest unto you, before the Living God, put them all to- 
gether, this country will be equivalent unto them, if it be 
inhabitant with good people." 

The Elizabeth left Virginia on her return voyage about 
July 8, 1613, taking the above letter from Dale, and in 
reply to the assertion that " the soil of Virginia produced 
no valuable commodity," she is supposed to have carried 
a part of Rolfe's little crop of tobacco. She also carried 
Argall's letter to Master Nicholas Hawes (or Hames), and 
letters from Molina (public and secret) to Velasco describ- 
ing the condition of the colony and colonists from his point 
of view. To the managers of the enterprise she carried 
" newes of theyre well doing in Virginia, which puts some 
life into that action, which before was almost at the last 
cast." The most interesting news carried was of the cap- 
ture of Pocahontas; the most important commodity was 
tobacco. 

The use of Algernoune, as the name of the fort on Point 
Comfort, seems to have been discontinued after the depar- 
ture of Percy.* 

The Treasurer, a ship belonging to Lord Governor West, 
Lord Rich (afterwards earl of Warwick), Captain Argall, 
and others, was at this time by them " wholly imployed 
in trade and other services for releving of the Colonic." 
When she left England her instructions were to remain in 
" the service of the Colony for twelve months," and, as we 

1 He certainly retained landed in- no evidence that he ever returned 
terests in Virginia ; but I have seen there. 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1613 — FEBRUARY, 1614 191 

have seen, ever since her arrival she had been employed 
in discovering the country and in trading with the savage 
" for releving of the Colonie." Hamor says : " Argall fur- 
nished us by two trading voyages with 2300 bushels of 
corn [besides supplying his own men], . . . established 
peace by the capture of Pocahuntas ; repaired our weather- 
beaten boats and furnished us with new, also, both strong 
and usefull." 

Argall, having also been commanded by the governor of 
the colony to remove interlopers from Virginia between 
34° and 45° north latitude, soon after the departure of the 
Elizabeth sailed to the northward from Virginia, prepared 
to obey orders, his ship being armed with fourteen guns 
and manned with sixty musketeers, " trained to sea service ; 
to board a ship over the side and forward and aft, in 
rank or file, just as well as soldiers in the Field." He 
soon reached Mount Desert, on the coast of Maine, where 
the Jesuits had established a settlement under the patron- 
age of Madame la Marquise de Guercheville, lady of honor 
to the queen of France. We now have several full ac- 
counts of this incident, and it is unnecessary to repeat 
the particulars. Argall made an immediate attack ; killed 
Brother Gilbert du Thet (a Jesuit) and two other French- 
men, wounded four, and captured the settlement. 

Captain La Saussaye, the commandant, and about four- 
teen others, being put into a French shallop, succeeded in 
reaching France in September, 1613. 

Captain Argall and his lieutenant, William Turner, re- 
turned to Virginia in August, bringing with them Captain 
Flores of the French ship (the Mayflower of the Jesuits), 
Sieur De la Motte, the colonial lieutenant. Fathers Pierre 
Biard and Jacques Quentin (Jesuits), with their two at- 
tendants, and nine other Frenchmen, to be added to the list 
of prisoners at Jamestown ; also a French ship of 100 tons, 
a barque of 12 tons, and sundry supplies. 

The prisoners were told that they would be under the 
jurisdiction of the marshal of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, 



192 UNDER THE COMPANY 

a great friend of tlie French, having won his chief distinc- 
tions through the recommendation of Henry the Great, 
whose soldier and pensioner he had been. But the pleasant 
hopes were not fulfilled. As soon as Dale heard the ac- 
count of them, " he spoke of nothing but of ropes and gal- 
lows and of hanging every one of us." However, Argall 
interceded for them, showed Dale the authority given them 
by the king of France ; and a few days later the French- 
men were assured that faith would be kept with them. 

The colonists must have been much excited over the very 
interesting collection of prisoners then at Jamestown, and 
the responsibilities connected through them, with Spain, 
France, and the Indians. But if any of the English at 
Jamestown were "given to writing," in the workdays of 
Gates and Dale, they did not have the time or opportunity 
to print their accounts of these things. In other respects 
the colonists, being mostly accUmated and for the present 
at peace with the Indians, were pursuing the even tenor 
of their way ; and this summer, among other things, they 
were making a more general effort for a crop of tobacco, 
learning how to cultivate and cure it and make it up. 

Late in September or early in October, 1613, Lieutenant- 
Governor Gates, Marshal Dale, and the rest of the Council 
in Virginia, held a consultation about the French settle- 
ments which might still remain within the bounds claimed 
by England, and it was determined to send Argall again to 
North Virginia (or New France as the French called it) with 
orders to destroy all such settlements. 

Leaving seven of the French prisoners in Virginia, Ar- 
gall sailed in October with three ships : the Treasurer (his 
own ship, in which he took Captain Flores and four other 
Frenchmen), the French ship, under William Turner (Ar- 
gall's lieutenant, who took with him the two Jesuits and 
their boy attendant), and the French barque with an Eng- 
lish crew of six men. 

They first went to Mount Desert, where they burnt the 
French works, cut down the French cross, and in its place 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1613 — FEBRUARY, 1614 193 

erected another cross with the name of the king of Great 
Britain carved on it, as a sign that they had taken posses- 
sion of the land as rightful owners. Here they remained 
more than eight days ; then went to St. Croix, a former 
settlement of the Sieur de Monts, where they secured a 
good supply of salt, burnt the dwellings, " and destroyed 
every token of French names and French claims, as he had 
been commanded to do." Argall reached Port Royal about 
the first of November, where, after loading his ships with 
all of value, he reduced the rest to ashes. Here as else- 
where all evidences of French claims were destroyed, " go- 
ing so far as to use pick and chisel on a large, massive 
stone, on which were engraved the names of the Sieur de 
Monts with other Captains, and the Lilies of France." 

Father Biard says that the master of the Treasurer was 
an Engflish Puritan more malicious than the others all to- 
gether against the Jesuits. 

Argall's Httle squadron left Port Eoyal November 9 ; 
two days after they were dispersed by a violent storm ; the 
French barque with six Englishmen in her was never heard 
of afterwards. Lieutenant Turner in the French prize ship, 
with the two Jesuits, finally determined to sail for England, 
and reached Milford Haven in January, 1614. 

The Treasurer weathered the storm, but was three weeks 
in making the voyage to Virginia, during which time Ar- 
gall is said to have " landed at Manhatas Isle in Hudson's 
river, where he found four houses built, and a pretended 
Dutch Governor, under the West-India Company of Amster- 
dam, who kept trading boats, and trucking with the In- 
dians." " The Dutch Governor " was told by the English 
that " their commission was to expell him and all Aliens 
Intruders on his Majesties Dominion and Territories, this 
being part of Virginia, and this river an English discovery 
of Hudson an Englishman ; the Dutchman contented them 
for their charge and voiage, and by his Letter sent to Vir- 
ginia and recorded, submitted himselfe. Company and 
Plantation to his Majesty and to the Governour, and Gov- 



194 UNDER THE COMPANY 

eriiment of Virginia." This statement cannot be verified. 
Nearly all of the early records of Virginia have long since 
been destroyed ; but however doubtful the Dutch incident 
may be, it seems certain that New England was preserved 
for the English by the prompt and decisive action of Argall, 
under orders from " the Governor of Viro^inia." 

Marshal Dale having driven the Indians from their settle- 
ments in the fork of James and Appomattox rivers, — from 
Henrico across to the Falls of the Appomattox River being 
only about two miles, — he considered how commodious a 
habitation and seat it might be for the English, and took 
resolution to possess and plant it ; and " gave it the name 
of the new Bermudas, (so-called, by reason of the strength 
of the situation, were it indifferently fortified) whereunto 
he laid out and annexed to be belonging to the Freedome 
and corporation forever, many miles of champion and wood- 
land in severall Hundreds, as Rochdale hundred [afterwards 
' The Neck of Land in the corporation of Charles City '], 
the upper and Nether Hundreds [in the curls of the river]. 
West's Sherly Hundred \J Sherley '] and Digges his hun- 
dred." He first began to plant in the Nether Hundred, 
where (soon after Argall's return) about Christmas, 1613, 
he commenced building Bermuda City " on a most hope- 
full site, whether we respect commodity or security (which 
we principally aime at) against forraigne designes, and 
invasions." Dale entered into a special agreement with 
the planters of this hundred and city (incorporation) by 
which they were promised an absolute freedom after three 
years more of service. 

The Indians who had been driven from Dale's place of 
resistance were called by the early settlers " Apamatica," 
" Apamutica," " Apamatucs," " Appamatucks," etc. In- 
dian names for places are apt to be descriptive of the places. 
These Indians were Algonquins, in whose language " apa- 
mu-tiku " means " a sinuous tidal estuary." Their chief 
town in 1607 was in, or rather just below, the present 
" Turkey Island bend," and the name was applicable rather 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1613 — FEBRUARY, 1614 195 

to the James than to the Appomattox ; but the EngHsh had 
previously named that river for their king. In the course 
of time the " apamu-tiku " country of the Indian came to 
be called " the curls of the river " by the English. 

It was here probably, while employed about these de- 
fenses, that Marshal Dale examined Argall's French prison- 
ers (of whom there were still about twelve in the colony), 
and they confessed to him that the French ship was taken 
between 43 and 44 degrees, which was within the English 
claim, and they gave Dale certificates to that effect. 



XIII 

ENGLAND, JULY 30, 1613— APRIL 7, 1614 
JAMES I. ACTING AS HIS OWN PRIME MINISTER 

About July 30, the Elizabeth, Captain Adams, returned 
from Virginia with letters from the colonists, and sundry 
documents, including an account of the capture of " Poka- 
huntis," which news " put some Hfe into the action which 
before was almost at the last cast." This ship also brought 
the first third of " the amber-greece " which had been 
found on the Bermudas, and probably a samj)le of John 
Kolfe's tobacco crop made in Virginia, in 1612. This is 
said to have been the first crop cultivated by an English- 
man in America of the commodity that soon became the 
mainstay of the colony. In spite of royal opposition and 
notwithstanding every hindrance, it came to supply the 
place of the vanished hopes of mines and the South Sea, 
and it may be to prevent the abandonment of Virginia. 

August 2, Velasco reported to Philip III., on the re- 
turn of the Elizabeth, and sent to him the letters from Mo- 
lina which had been brought by a " perfectly trustworthy 
person " on board that ship from Virginia. 

Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that the ship brought no 
commodities from thence ; but only these fair tales of the 
capture of the king's daughter, for whose ransom the father 
offers to show them gold mines, etc. 

Gondomar, who had been appointed Spanish ambassador 
in England prior to June 14, landed at Portsmouth about 
August 10, and reached London a week later. August 10, 
Philip III. wrote to him inclosing copies of sundry letters 
to and from Velasco, relative to the Spanish prisoners in 
Virginia, and urging him to secure their freedom as soon 



ENGLAND, JULY 30, 1G13 — APRIL 7, 1614 197 

as possible. Ten days after his king again wrote to him on 
the same subject. 

On the 25th Digby wrote from Madrid to James I. that 
" within these two days I know both the Spanish Council 
of War and of State, have satt about the overthrowino- of 
our new plantation in the Bermudas." " I know they would 
have attempted the removing of the English from Virginia, 
but that they are certainly informed ; the Business will fall 
of itself." 

September 6, Gondomar wrote to his king telling of the 
bounty of James I. to Velasco and reporting about Vir- 
ginia and the Bermudas. 

September 13, Digby wrote from Madrid to James I. 
about the letters from Molina sent by the Spanish ambassa- 
dor in England to the king of Spain, which inclined him 
still to believe that the business would die of itself. On 
the next day Philip III, wrote to Velasco thanking him for 
these letters, and urging him to induce James I. to have 
Molina broug'ht over to Eno-land. 

September 29, the Martha returned from the Bermudas, 
and October 5, Gondomar reported this fact to his king, 
telling him what he had learned of those islands from those 
who returned in this ship, and of Virginia from those who 
returned in the EHzabeth, on July 30. His accounts of 
both colonies are very discouraging. They contain some 
truth mixed with a good deal of diplomacy which was mis- 
leading or untrue. He also tells his king that " he had ob- 
tained an order, which would be sent to Virginia within 20 
days, for the Governor there to send Diego de Molina to 
London." The possession of this prisoner was a protection 
to the little colony, as Philip III. was loath to risk his Hfe 
by assaulting Virginia. He was not a sailor, as Philip HI. 
tried to make the English think, but a grandee of Spain. 

A part of the Jesuit colony removed from North Vir- 
ginia by Argall arrived in France late in September or 
early in October ; soon thereafter the news reached Eng- 
land, and this put the company " upon the question " with 



198 UNDER THE COMPANY 

France, placing thereby another difficulty in the way to be 
overcome. 

The Elizabeth, Captain Adams, sailed for Virginia Oc- 
tober 24, " laden with provisions only." Notwithstanding 
the strong protest (of June, 1613) from Dale, " owing to 
the abandonment of the business by many who undertook 
it," some of " the letters upon letters" carried by this ship 
were of a gloomy character. 

October 21, Sir Thomas Edmonds wrote from Paris to 
James I. that the French were dissatisfied at beino; hindered 
by the English from the whale-fishing at Greenland ^ and 
also at the removal of the Jesuit colony. October 28, 
Montmorency, admiral of France, wrote to the king of Eng- 
land on the same subject, and sending like letters from the 
king of France. The storm clouds-were gathering about 
the infant colony on every quarter. 

" Capt. Button said from the observations, which he 
made, especially of the tides [Port Nelson, Hudson's Bay], 
he came home [fall of 1613] perfectly satisfied, that a 
North- West passage might be found ; and he told Mr. 
Briggs, the famous Professor of Geometry at Gresham Col- 
lege, that he had convinced King James of the truth of 
his opinion." ^ But the English gave out to the public a 
report of no hope ; and on November 9 Digby wrote to 
James I. that the Spaniards were very glad. A few days 
after this Digby had an interview with the Spanish secre- 
tary of state, the Spaniards being dissatisfied at being hin- 
dered by the English from the whale-fishing at Greenland 
and at their settling in Virginia and the Bermudas, and, on 
November 13, Digby wrote to Carleton describing this in- 
terview. About the same time Sir Noel Caron, the ambas- 
sador from the Netherlands, brought suit for the restitution 
of two ships taken by the ships of the Muscovy Company. 

1 The voyage set forth by the Eng- ^ gge, also, the legend on the map, 
lish Muscovy Company had returned Purchas, vol. iii. p. 852. 
in September, 1613. See Genesis of the 
United States, p. 631. 



ENGLAND, JULY 30, 1613 — APRIL 7, 1614 199 

So this whaling-voyage seems to have gotten the English 
into trouble on all sides. 

October 23, Digby reported from Spain to James I. 
that Gondomar's dispatches about Virginia and the Bermu- 
das were to be submitted to the Spanish Council of the 
Indies, and the next day Philip III. wrote to Gondomar, 
thanking him for these dispatches, and urging him to con- 
tinue in well-doing along the same lines. 

November 16, Gondomar reported to his king about hav- 
ing sent supplies and an order for Molina to Virginia by 
the Elizabeth. 

The Michaelmas term of the Virginia quarter courts 
was held on November 27. The records are still wanting, 
but this was necessarily a very important meeting. 

January 12, 1614, the complaints against Captain Argall 
of Virginia and against " the fleet towards Greenland " 
were brought before the English Privy Council, and two 
days thereafter the Muscovy Company reported that " they 
had answered the complaints against them to the good sat- 
isfaction of the State ; " but it was long before the foreign 
nations were pacified on all points. 

January 12, Edmonds reports from Paris to James I. that 
Villeroy was becoming much more reasonable as to the 
whale-fishery. 

While James I. was acting as prime minister the dis- 
patches of his foreign ambassadors to him seem to have 
been fairly well preserved ; but his dispatches to them, 
most unfortunately, do not seem to have been preserved at 
all. And in Spain the copies of the dispatches of Philip 
III. to his ambassadors, still preserved, are evidently mere 
abstracts or outlines. 

February 2, " the Greenland and Canada " matters were 
again before the English Privy Council. " The Treasurer 
and Councell of Virginia " told their lordships that they 
had received no news from Virginia since June, but as soon 
as they heard from Virginia they felt sure of being able to 
give the lord ambassador of France good satisfaction. 



200 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Ever since the death of Henry, Prince of Wales (Novem- 
ber, 1612), the managers (in England and Virginia) had 
been contending against an increasing desire to abandon 
the colony. 

The Hilary term of the Virginia quarter court met on 
Wednesday, February 12, 1614, and they then determined, 
among other things, to appeal to the next Parliament for 
" An Act for the better plantation of Virginia and supply 
thereof," and to publish " A declaration of the present es- 
tate of the English in Virginia, with the final resolution 
of the Great Lotterye intended for their supply." The 
Privy Council recommended the calling of a Parliament on 
February 26, and among the bills to be propounded was 
the proposed Act for Virginia. March 19, the " declara- 
tion " was ready and was entered for publication. 

March 8, the East India Company gave Sir Thomas Dale 
permission to adventure <£100 in their joint stock. Others 
wished to adventure in this stock at this time, but Lott 
Peere induced them to adventure in the Somers Islands 
stock instead. March 13, the East India Company lent 
the Virginia Company two culverins. On the same day 
Captain John Smith and Master Thomas Hunt sailed from 
the Downs for North Virginia.^ And about the same time 
the Somers Islands Company sent out three ships and two 
pinnaces for the Bermudas. 

March 27, the States General grant the Dutch a char- 
ter for making discoveries, trading, etc., in America. 

March 17, Gondomar wrote his king a long account of 
'• the land of the Devils " from the wreck of 1609 to date. 
He also says that the members of the Virginia Company 
wished to abandon Virginia and carry the people to the 
Bermudas, but that the king and the Council would not 
permit this to be done, and that they had gone back and 

^ It is not necessary for me to give blame on Hunt ; but we must read 

the details of this voyage. Smith in Hunt's side before we can decide the 

his account, as usual with him, takes case fairly, 
great credit to himself and lays great 



ENGLAND, JULY 30, 1613 — APRIL 7, 1614 201 

tried a lottery again, to succor and maintain that colony of 
Virginia. He says "the colony is very expensive to the 
company which sustains it, and the king gives nothing but 
patents towards the establishment of these colonies." 

In justice to King James I will say that in the first 
place, under all the circumstances then obtaining, I doubt 
if it would have been good policy to have given anything 
else or to have taken a more public part than he did during 
the first ten years. And in the second place, if he had 
given anything else it would really have come out of the 
taxes from his subjects. The " patents " really conveyed 
a freedom from sundry taxes and about all the privileges 
which might be expected from a Idng. 

April 1, 1614, W. Shipman wrote to Sir John Feme 
that £200,000 or more were spent yearly in this kingdom 
on tobacco, and offered £5,000 a year as a present to a 
nobleman of the court for an exclusive patent. It has been 
asserted that, as merchants " ever aim at a present profit," 
it would have been better if the movement had been entirely 
under the management of noblemen ; but I doubt it. The 
above gives an idea as to some of their present profits. 
Where a merchant might be satisfied with a penny profit 
the nobility might want a pound clear. 

April 8, Sir Ralph Winwood was sworn secretary of 
state, and the prime ministry of James I. came to an end. 



XIV 

VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 — DECEMBER, 1614 

SIR THOMAS GATES, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR TO MARCH. 
MARSHAL SIR THOMAS DALE, DEPUTY -GOVERNOR, MARCH 
TO DECEMBER, I6I4 

The Elizabeth, Captain Adams, wliicli sailed from Eng- 
land October 24, 1613, via the Bermudas, arrived in Vir- 
ginia in February, 1614, with silkworms, supplies for the 
colony and for Molina, also many letters, many of which 
were from friends in England begging their friends to 
return from Vii-ginia. Amono- these was a letter to Sir 
Thomas Dale from " Mr. Dr. Mocket," who for the first 
time wrote discouragingly, " because he saw the action to 
be in danger by many of their non performances who 
undertook the business," etc. 

The leave of absence of Lieutenant-Governor Gates from 
the Netherlands having expired, he went back to England 
on the Elizabeth about March 1, 1614, taking with him 
the Sieur de la Motte and the official accounts of Argall's 
northern expeditions, also Marshal Dale's reply to the Rev. 
Richard Mockett, and other papers which have not been 
found. The ship, also, probably carried some of "the 
letters which some wicked men sent from Virginia, and 
especially one C. L. much debasing Sir Thomas Dale," 
about which the Rev. Alexander Whitaker afterwards wrote 
to Master Gouge, minister of the Black Friars in London. 
Gates not only did not take Molina, but just as he was 
about to embark " told him that he had no orders to take 
im. 

Marshal Dale again succeeded as deputy-governor under 
the commission from Lord Governor De la Warr. 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 — DECEMBER, 16U 203 

The correct Indian name for the daughter of the chief of 
the Powhatans, commonly called Pocahontas, was Matoaka. 
Purchas says " that they [the Indians] had concealed her 
true name from the English in a superstitious feare of hurt 
by the English if her name were knowne." After she had 
made some good progress in Christian religion, had publicly 
renounced the idolatry of her country, and openly confessed 
the faith of Jesus Christ, she was christened " Rebecca," 
and baptized, as she desired, being the first fruit of the 
English Church among the native Virginians. And this 
was the crowning incident in her life and one of the impor- 
tant events in the early history of the colony. 

Soon after Gates left Virginia, Deputy-Governor Dale 
took Pocahontas on board Captain Argall's ship, the Trea- 
surer, and went up into the Pamaunkie, Powhatan's own 
river (now known as York River), " either to move them 
to fight for her, if such were their courage and boldness, 
or to restore the residue of our demands, which were our 
pieces, swords, tooles." They continued up this river fight- 
ing and " parleeing " with the Indians until " the time of 
the yeere being then Aprill, called us to our businesse at 
home to prepare ground and set corne." While they were 
up this river, " parleeing " with the Indians, Captain Ralph 
Hamor made known to Sir Thomas Dale the love which 
had long existed between his friend, John Rolfe, and Poca- 
hontas, by delivering to Sir Thomas a letter from Rolfe 
explaining the situation. And the king's daughter herself 
acquainted her brethren with her intended marriage. She 
" went ashore, but would not talk to any of them, scarce 
to them of the best sort, and to them onely, she said that if 
her father had loved her, he would not value her less than 
old swords and axes, wherefore she would still dwell with 
the Englishmen, who loved her." 

As the intended marriage received Dale's approval, the 
troth was plighted at once, and we can imagine the Trea- 
surer, returning to Jamestown with Rolfe and his betrothed 
on board, sailing up the James with the red cross of St. 



204 UNDER THE COMPANY 

George flying from the masthead, with the fanfaron of 
her trumpets and the drums, and with the joyous booming 
of her guns. 

The marriage was solemnized in the church at James- 
town, about the 15th of April, 1614, by the Rev. Richard 
Buck, according to the beautiful ritual of the Church of 
England; her father and friends gave approbation to it, 
her old uncle, Apachisco, as the deputy for Powhatan, gave 
her to him in the church, two of her brothers were present 
to see the ceremony performed, and a general peace ensued 
upon it, which lasted so long as she lived. 

We can easily imagine a very interesting assemblage at 
the ceremony, — unfortunately for the picture, the two 
Jesuit fathers had left Virginia, but there were still divers 
peoples at Jamestown who may have been present at this, 
the first marriage in America of an Indian princess to an 
English gentleman, — namely, English and Dutch soldiers, 
sailors, and colonists, Polanders, etc., French and Spanish 
prisoners, and Indians. 

Francis Lymbrye, the English pilot who had been cap- 
tured while in the service of Spain, was taken on board of 
the Treasurer (" a man of war ") about the time of the 
marriage, " where they treat him liberally [says Molina], 
and use much persuasion to make him confess that he is an 
English-man." The English spoke of carrying the Span- 
ish prisoners to Bermuda City, and, on April 30, Molina 
wrote to Gondomar to tell him about it, as " I shall not be 
able to write after that." 

About this time Marshal Dale took Captain Argall, with 
fifty men in a frigate and barge, went up the " Chicoho- 
minie " River and concluded a treaty with " the people 
of Check-a-homanies." In the third article they promised 
" at all times to be ready to furnish the English with three 
or four hundred bowmen to aid them against the Spaniards 
— whose name is odious amongst them, for Powhatan's 
father was driven by them from the West-Indies into these 
parts — or against any other Indians which should, con- 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 — DECEMBER, 1614 205 

trary to the established peace offer the English any injury." 
The fifth article was, " Every bowman to give the governor 
of Viro-inia as a tribute to Kin^ James two measures 
(2| bushels) of corn every harvest." 

They had now concluded a peace, not only with the 
resident, but also with the bordering Indians, and this 
peace, being tolerably well kept for nearly eight years, 
enabled the planters to sow and reap quietly, to hunt, fish, 
etc., and to let their cattle range without danger. It was, 
as Rolfe says, " the foundacoun and ground-worke of their 
thrift and happiness." 

Ralph Hamor, mth Thomas Savage as interpreter, and 
two Indian guides, left Bermuda City early in the morning 
of May 25, on a visit to Powhatan, and returning, arrived 
in the night of May 29. He afterwards published a long 
account of this visit in his " True Discourse of the Present 
Estate of Virginia " (1615). In this book he gives also 
a description of the country, the condition of the colony, 
with an account of the settlements at that time. 

" Sir Thomas Dale hath taken a new course, throughout 
the whole Colony, by which meanes, the generall store 
(apparrell onely excepted) shall not be charged with any 
thing : and this it is, he hath allotted to every man in the 
colony, three English acres of cleere corne ground, which 
every man is to manure and tend, [they] being in the 
nature of [and called] Farmers, (the Bermuda undertakers 
[who had a special contract] onely excepted) and they are 
not called unto any service or labor belonging to the 
Colony, more than one month in the ye?,r, which shall 
neither be in seed time, or in harvest, for which, doing 
no other duty to the Colony, they are yearly to pay into 
the store two barrells and a half of corn." 

Hamor purposed inserting the " Pattent " of the under- 
takers of •' the Bermudas city," but for some unknown 
reason failed to do so. 

" The bread crops were Indian corn, Indian peas, and In- 
dian beans; English wheat, English peas, English beans, 
and English barley. 



206 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Vegetables : Carrots, parsnips, turnips, radish, pumpkins 
(tlio West Indian kind), cabbage, parsley, all manner of 
herbs, etc. 

" There were two hundred neat cattle, as many goats, in- 
finite number of hogs, some mares, horses and colts (some 
of these had been brought from the north by Argall), great 
store of poultry, besides tame turkeys, peacocks, pigeons, 
etc. 

" Wild game and fur animals : Bears, Deer, Beavers, 
Otters, Foxes, Racounes (almost as big as a Fox, as good 
meat as a lamb) Hares, wild cats, musk rats, Squirels 
(flying and others sorts) and Apossumes [opossums] of 
the bignesse and likenesse of a Pigge of a month old, a 
beast of as strange as incredible nature, she hath com- 
monly seven young ones, which at her pleasure till they 
be a month old or more she taketh up into her belly, and 
putteth forth again without hurt to herself or them. 

" Wild fowl (both land and water) : Eagles, wild Tur- 
keys (much bigger than our English) Cranes, Herons 
(white and russet). Hawks, wild pigeons (in winter beyond 
number or imagination, myself have seen three or four 
hours together flocks in the air, so thick that even they 
have shaddowed the sky from us), Turkey Buzzards, Par- 
tridges, Snipes, Owls, Swans, Geese, Brants, Ducks and 
Mallard, Divers, Shel Drakes, Cormorants, Teale, Widgeon, 
Curlews, Puits, besides other small birds, as. Black-bird, 
hedge sparrows, Oxeies, woodpeckers, and in winter about 
Christmas many flocks of Parakertoths. 

" For Fish — the Rivers are plentifully stored, with 
Sturgeon, Porpasse, Base, Rockfish, Carpe, Shad, Herring, 
Ele, Catfish, Perch, Flat-fish, Trout, Sheeps-head, Drum- 
mers, Jarfish, Crevises, Crabs, Oysters and diverse other 
kindes. Of all which myself have seen great quantity 
taken, especially the last summer at Smith's Island, at one 
hale, a frigots lading of Sturgeon, Base, and other great 
fish in Captain e Argall' s seine ; and even at that very place, 
which is not above fifteen miles from Point Comfort, if we 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1G14 — DECEMBER, 1614 207 

had been furnislied with salt, to have saved them, we might 
have saved as much fish as would have served us that whole 
year." 

" Wild fruits and nuts : Grapes, Cherries, Pissmien plums 
(persimmons), other sorts of plums, strawberries, mulber- 
ries, maricocks, crab-apples, walnuts, chesnuts, chincomens 
(chinquapin), filberts, etc. There being- in Sir Thomas 
Gates his garden at Jamestown many forward English apple 
and pear trees come up of the kernels set the year before ; " 
these " Siens " they intended to graft on the native crab- 
apple trees, and hoped for good results. 

In brief, it was hard to amplify the plenty of bread, 
flesh, fish, fruit, vegetables, etc., which might be obtained 
with a little industry. 

As for the country commodities, such as iron, alum, 
better mines, and such like, Hamor left them to be related 
by others more conversant therewith than himself ; but he 
did know something of " the valuable commodity of To- 
bacco of such esteeme in England (if there were nothing 
else) which every man may plant, and with the least part of 
his labour, tend and cure will returne him both cloathes and 
other necessaries. For the goodnesse whereof, answerable 
to West-Indie Trinidado or Cracus (admit[ted that] there 
hath no such [as yet] bin returned) let no man doubt. 
... I dare thus much affirme, whose goodnesse mine own 
experience and trial induces me to be such, that no country 
under the Sunne, may, or doth afi^oord more pleasant, sweet, 
and strong Tobacco, than I have tasted there, even of mine 
owne planting, which, howsoever being then the first year 
of our triall thereof, we had not the knowledge to cure, and 
make up, yet are there some now resident there, out of the 
last years well observed experience, who do know, and I 
doubt not, will make and return such Tobacco this year, 
that even England shall acknowledge the goodnesse 
thereof." ' 

^ Evidently the tobacco previously imported from Virginia had not been 
received with favor in Ensrlaud. 



208 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" I may not forget the gentleman^ worthie of much com- 
mendations, which first tooke the pains to make triall 
thereof, his name Mr. John Rolfe, Anno Domini 1612, 
partly for the love he hath a long time borne unto it, 
and partly to raise commodity to the adventurers, in whose 
behalfe I witnesse and vouchsafe to holde my testimony in 
beleefe, that during the time of his aboade there, which 
draweth neere upon six yeeres, no man hath laboured to his 
power, by good example there and worthy incouragement 
into England by his letters, than he hath done, witness his 
marriage with Powhatans daughter, one of rude education, 
manners barbarous and cursed generation, merely for the 
good and honour of the Plantation." 

Hamor also looked upon the products of silk grass and 
silkworms as hopeful and merchantable commodities. " The 
silk grass which groweth like unto our flax (I mean not of 
that kind formerly sent over) I have seen, even of the natu- 
ral ['Camack's flax?'], and wild plants, which Captaine 
Martin, who much delighteth in those businesses, hath 
made, exceeding fine and exceeding strong silke, and him- 
selfe hath replanted many of the wilde plants this year, the 
silke whereof he purposeth to returne for triall. 

" The silke wormes sent thither from England [by the 
Elizabeth], in seeds the last winter, came forth many of 
them the beginning of March, others in April, May, and 
June, thousands of them grown to great bignesse, and a 
spinning, and the rest well thriving of their increase. Of 
the commodity well known to be reaped by them, we have 
almost assurance (since sure I am) no country affordeth 
more store of Mulberry trees, or a kind with whose leafe 
they more delight, or thrive better." 

Hamor describes Henrico as standing " upon a neck of 
very high land, 3 parts thereof invironed with the main 
River, and cut over betweene the two rivers [Dale's ' Dutch 
Gap,' such as he had learned to make in Holland], with a 
strong pale, which maketh the neck of land an island 
[now called Farrar's Island]. There is in this town 3 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 — DECEMBER, 1614 209 

streets of well framed houses, a hansom Church, and the 
foundation of a more stately one laid, of Brick, in length 
an hundred foote, and fifty foot wide, beside store houses, 
watch-houses, and such Hke : there are also, as ornaments 
belonging to this Town, upon the verge of this river, five 
fair Block houses, wherein live the honester sort of people, 
as in Farmes in England, and there keep continuall centinell 
for the townes security. And about two miles from the 
towne into the Main, a Pale of two miles in length, cut 
over from [James] river to [Appomattox] river, guarded 
likewise with severall Block-houses, with a great quantity 
of corn ground impaled, sufficient if there were no more in 
the Colony secured, to maintain with but easy manuring 
and husbandry more men than I suppose will be addressed 
thither (the more is the pity) these 3 yeeres." 

They had also impaled (for they made no other fence) 
the bend west of " Henrico," which they called " Coxen- 
Dale," and secured it by five forts, called : " Hope in 
\_andf^ Faith, Charity [and Wisdom?] Fort, Mount Ma- 
lado [Malady ?] (a retreat, or guest house for sick people, 
a high seat, and wholsome aire), Elizabeth Fort, and Port 
Patience. And here hath Mr. Whitacres chosen his Par- 
sonage, or church land [glebe], some hundred acres im- 
paled, and a faire framed parsonage house built thereupon, 
called Rock Hall. Of this Town, and all the Forts there- 
unto belonging, hath Captaine James Davis, the principal 
Commaunde, and government." 

The Bermuda city, town, or plantation, was seated, by 
land some five miles from Henrico, by water fourteen, and 
just below the present Turkey Island bend, " with a Pale cut 
over from River to River, about two miles long, we have 
secured some eight miles circuit of ground, upon which 
pale, and round about, upon the verge of the River in this 
[Nether] Hundred, half a mile distant from each other, are 
very faire houses, already builded, besides divers other par- 
ticular mens houses, not so few as fifty, according to the 
conditions of the pattent graunted them." They were "in- 



210 UNDER THE COMPANY 

joyned by a charter (being incorporated to the Bermuda 
towne, which is made a corporacoun,) to effect and per- 
forme such duties and services whereunto they are bound 
for a certain tyme [three years February 1614: to February 
1617], and then to have their freedome." *' In this Plan- 
tation, next to Sir Thomas Dale, is principal in the com- 
mand Captaine George Yardley, (Sir Thomas Gates his 
lieftenaunt), whose endeavours have ever deserved worthy 
commendations in that employment." Rochdale Hundred 
was also impaled by a cross pale with bordering houses. 
" The undertaking of the chief Cltty deferred till their 
Harvest be in, which once reaped, all hands shall be im- 
ployed thereon, which Sir Thomas Dale purposeth, (and he 
may with some labour effect his designes) to make an im- 
pregnable retreat, against any forraign invasion how pow- 
erfull so-ever." 

The only channel in the river for ships flowed so close 
along the southern shore of the James at the present Ber- 
muda Hundred and the present City Point (on each side 
of the mouth of Appomattox River) as to be easily com- 
manded by land batteries, and Dale now proposed for- 
tifying both of these points very strongly against a foreign 
enemy, and settling the colonists beyond them in the fork 
of the rivers protected at proper points in flank and rear by 
Dutch gaps and impalings against the Indians. 

The first Bermuda incorporation (town or hundred) was 
on or about the present site of Bermuda Hundred, and " the 
chief citty," afterwards called Charles City (for Prince 
Charles), was at City Point. 

Of Jamestown, Hamor says : " The Towne itself by the 
care and providence of Sir Thomas Gates (who for the 
most part had his chiefest residence there), is reduced into 
a hansome forme, and hath in it two faire rowes of bowses, 
all of framed Timber (two stories, and an upper garret, or 
corne loft, high), besides three large and substantiall store 
bowses, joyned togeather in length some hundred and 
twenty foot, and in breadth forty. This Town hath been 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 - DECEMBER, 1614 211 

lately newly and strongly impaled, and a faire platforme for 
Ordnance in the west Bulwarke raised : There are also 
without this towne in the Island some very pleasant and 
beautifull bowses, two Blockhouses (to observe and watch 
least the Indians at any time should swim over the back 
river, and come into the Island), and certain other farme 
houses. The commaund and government of this town 
hath master John Sharpe, Liftenant to Captain Francis 
West, brother to the right honourable, the Lord Lawarre." 
West succeeded Percy as commander at Jamestown in 
1612, and continued in that office for many years. He 
was probably in England at this time. 

Captain George Webb had lately been appointed the 
principal commander of Forts Henry and Charles, " near 
Point Comfort upon Kecoughtan." And Hamor regrets 
that with tha poor means they had, they could not secure 
the Point, " if a forraigne enemy, as we have just cause to 
expect daily, should attempt it." 

Molina wrote to Gondomar that the three forts near the 
mouth of the river had been dismantled, and only six or 
seven men were stationed there to give warning ; and that 
almost all the people had gone to the new settlements up 
the river above Jamestown. 

Edward Coles, Kitchins, and others who had been acting 
as the guard of Molina (going about with him to fish, etc.), 
were persuaded by him to attempt to reach the Spanish set- 
tlements in Florida, and, it being now a time of peace, they 
had traveled " some five days journey to Ocanahoen,"^ when 
they were there cut off by the Indians and brought back to 
Jamestown, where they were tried and six of them con- 
demned and executed. On account of this tampering by 
Molina with the settlers. Marshal Dale determined to place 
the Spanish prisoners in close confinement in a stockade 
near Jamestown. On June 14, Molina wrote to Gondomar, 

^ Possibly the Occaiieechi country, and Georgia Indians, where the Span- 
near the present Hillsboro, N. C, on ish Roman Catholic missions were, 
the great trail between the Virginia 



212 UNDER THE COMPANY 

and on the same day Lymbrye was taken from aboard the 
Treasurer, and they were afterwards so closely confined as 
not to be able to send any more letters from the colony. 
But before going to prison Molina had been able to give 
his letters of April 30 and June 14 to two spies in the 
pay of Gondomar who were then in Virginia, and after- 
wards sailed on the Treasurer taking the information 
which they had obtained and these two letters (one con- 
cealed in a coil of rope, the other between the soles of his 
shoe) to the Spanish minister at London. Father Biard 
said that the suro;eon of the Treasurer was a Roman Cath- 
olic ; but I do not know that he was one of these spies. 

Among other letters sent by the Treasurer were : one 
from Rev. Alexander Whitaker to his cousin, Rev. W. 
Gouge, telling him of the conversion and marriage of Poca- 
hontas, the virtuous deeds of Dale, etc., and that although 
his term of service had expired, he had determined to remain 
longer. One from Marshal Dale to Mr. D. M. (Rev. Dr. 
Mocket), in which letter, grieving over the death of Prince 
Henry, the patron of Virginia, he writes : " My glorious 
master is gone, that would have ennamelled with his fa- 
vours the labours I undertake, for Gods cause, and his 
immortall honour. He was the great Captaine of our Is- 
raeli, the hope to have builded up this heavenly new Jeru- 
salem. He interred (I think) the whole frame of this busi- 
nesse, fell into his grave : for most mens forward (at least 
seeming so) desires are quenched, and Virginia stands in 
desperate hazard." But Dale was not dismayed ; he writes 
on in praise of the country, telling of his acts since Gates 
left, of the conversion and marriage of Powhatan's daugh- 
ter, of the peace with the Indians, of the real necessity 
there was for his remaining although his leave of absence 
had expired, and asks him to " remember me, and the 
cause I have in hand, in your daily meditations." Other 
letters from " Dale and others certifying The Treasurer 
and whole Company of Virginia, of the present estate of 
their Colony and that the English were now become labori- 



VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY, 1614 — DECEMBER, 1614 213 

oiis and industrious and were plenteously stored with food 
o£ their own and well furnished with good houses in sundry 
places for their habitation, and most juditiously manifested 
unto the Company the just cause of good hope and great 
profit to ensue in short time by this plantation." 

Many of the accounts of the colony given out at this 
time for patriotic reasons were rose-colored ; the brief decla- 
ration of the old planters in 1624, for party reasons, was 
the other way ; but a review of the whole evidence, in Eng- 
land, France, Spain, and Virginia, shows that the enter- 
prise was almost depending on the cast of a die. Dale's 
determination to stay was of vital importance ; and it was 
most fortunate that the colony had not been perplexed for 
some years with large numbers of new emigrants to be 
dying daily, and thus discouraging the living. Those then 
in Virginia, although few in numbers, had become accH- 
mated and were enjoying good health. They were at peace 
with the Indians, and, " bless their souls," they were plant- 
ing tobacco.^ 

Soon after June 28, Captain Argall sailed from Vir- 
ginia in the Treasurer, taking with him the letters already 
mentioned ; Ralph Hamor, late secretary of the colony ; 
Captain Flory and two other Frenchmen ; the certificates 
and depositions of several Frenchmen who remained in Vir- 
ginia, etc. Biard in his Relation, written probably in 1615, 
says, " out of our whole number three died in Virginia, and 
four are there still." 

1 Tobacco soon became, and contin- people of Virginia had souls to be 

ued, the staple crop of Virginia. One saved as well as the people of Eng- 

of the Rev. James Blair's arguments, land." To which Seymour replied, 

before Attorney-General Seymour, in " Souls ! damn your Souls ! make to- 

behalf of the charter for William and bacco." 
Mary College in 1692, was " that the 



XV 

ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614— APRIL, 1615 
SIR RALPH WIN WOOD, PRIME MINISTER 

April 11, 1614, the Privy Council sent a circular letter 
to the city companies of London, — inclosing " A true decla- 
ration of the present estate of the English colony planted 
in Virginia together with a project by help of a lottery to 
bring at length that work to the success desired," — com- 
mending the project and the enterprise to them, etc. April 
25, this letter and " Declaration was read to The Grocers, 
together with a Lottery Booke with certain directions." 
Whereupon Sir Thomas Middleton, " Lord Mayor of this 
city and many other brethren of this Company wrote in the 
said book how much they would therein adventure as by 
the said book may appear." April 30, the lord mayor issued 
his precept to the city companies sending them copies of 
the Privy Council's letter, and urging them to comply there- 
with. And the Stationers', Merchant Tailors', and other 
companies did so. 

Lieutenant William Turner and the Jesuit captives 
reached London in April, having sailed from Port Royal, 
North Virginia, November 10. Sir Thomas Gates and the 
Sieur de la Motte, from Virginia, on the Elizabeth, reached 
London about May 17 ; and Captain La Saussaye reached 
there from France about the same time. Gates brought to 
England the official accounts of " Argall's Voyages to the 
Northward." He at once began " using his best meanes 
for more suppUes to continue their plantation." May 22, 
Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : " Sir Thomas Gates is come 
from Virginia and brings word that that plantation will fall 



ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614— APRIL, 1615 215 

to the ground if it be not presently supplied. He speaks 
of wonderful] commodities that are to be had there, if we 
could have the patience and would be at the cost to bring 
them to perfection." 

Parliament met April 15, 1614. " The House consisted 
of about 472, of whom 300 were not in the last Parliament, 
whereof many are young." Many of the House of Lords, 
and about one hundred and forty members of this House 
of Commons were also members of the Virginia Company. 
In opening Parliament, the king made a long speech " con- 
sisting of three principal parts wherein all his care lay, — 
to continue to his subjects, bona animi, bona corporis, et 
bona for twice, by maintaining religion, preserving of peace, 
and seeking their prosperity, by increasing of trades and 
traffics." 

As Bacon outlines the times, " the state was then envi- 
roned with envious foreigners ; there were encroachments 
on matters of trade ; religion was a matter of controversy, 
and to look a year before him would trouble the best watch- 
man in Europe." 

The proceedings in the House on April 30 were with 
reference to " the French Company," of which Sir Thomas 
Smith was also governor. The colony was in jeopardy, but 
there was no desire to annul the Virginia charter at this 
time, and there was then no trade of consequence in Vii-- 
ginia tobacco.^ " The French Company " was regarded as 
a monopoly, and, in speaking against its patent, Mr. Dun- 
combe made the assertion that " Free Trade is every Man's 
Inheritance and Birth risfht." 

" On May 22, The Company for Virginia prefer a peti- 
tion [for ' An Act for the better plantation of Virginia and 
supply thereof '], which was read ; and Monday at nine 
of the clock appointed for the Counsel for the Company of 
Virginia [to be heard] in this House." 

^ Neill's Virginia Company of Lon- 690, in The Genesis of the United States, 
don, pp. 67, 68, is in error. I was should be canceled, 
misled thereby, and no. ecciv. pp. 689, 



216 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" May 26, Monday — Mr. Brooke moveth the Virginia 
Business may be tomorrow at seven of the clock." 

" May 27. Ordered, My Lord of Southampton, my Lord 
Sheffield, etc., shall come in to hear the treaty of the Vir- 
ginia Business, and that the Lords shall for a time sit bare 

— and shall shortly after, at Mr. Speaker's Discretion, be 
spoken to. 

" Ordered, That no Member of the House shall stand 
in the entry, upon Penalty of 12*^ to the Serjeant. 

" Ordered, There shall be great silence, at the Lords be- 
ing here. 

" Mr. Martyn of Counsel with the Company, cometh in 
before the Lords," etc. ^ 

A portion of Martyn's speech was in reply to the main 
objection that, " if the Virginia business was openly under- 
taken by the crown and Parliament, it might result in a war 
with Spain." It was an able and eloquent speech, but, 
unfortunately, Martyn, who was not then a member of Par- 
liament, got himself into hot water by giving the numer- 
ous young members a little fatherly advice. This caused a 
wrangle ; but the speaker. Sir Randolph Crewe, assured the 
friends of the Virginia business that " the remembrances 
of the Plantation were well accepted and looked upon with 
eyes of our love." 

" This young House of Commons," regardless of Mar- 
tyn's advice, got themselves into trouble by quarreling with 
" the old House of Lords," and the king dissolved the Par- 
Hament (June 17) before it had passed a single measure 

— the Virginia business, or any other. It was nearly seven 
years before the king called another Parliament. 

On May 29, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton describing 
the Martyn incident in the House, and, on June 7, Rev. 
Thomas Lorkin wrote to Sir Thomas Puckering, at Madrid, 
on the same subject. 

The Easter term of the Virginia quarter court met on 
June 4, but the records are still missing. 

^ Genesis of the United States, pp. 692-694. 



ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614 — APRIL, 1615 217 

In July the Treasurer, Captain Argall, returned from 
Virginia with Captain Flory and two other Frenchmen ; 
with the depositions of the French who remained in Vir- 
ginia relative to his northern voyages, and numerous other 
documents of great importance. Captain La Saussaye had 
already reached London from France. The Trinity term 
of the Virginia quarter courts was held on July 16. We 
have constantly to deplore the loss of the company records, 
but it is quite certain that the reply of the Virginia Coun- 
cil to the order of the Privy Council (February 2) was sanc- 
tioned by this court. It is a vindication of Argall's act, a 
defense of its legality. 

On July 31, Lorkin wrote from London to Puckering, at 
Madrid, telling of the news, freshly arrived from the Ber- 
mudas, of two Spanish ships, with a Httle frigate, taking 
soundings about the island. 

About the same time, probably on the same day, the 
Privy Council of England sent in their " Answer to the 
complaints presented to King James by the Sieur de Buis- 
seaux — French Ambassador at the Court of his Majesty." 

In this reply the Privy Council make use of the informa- 
tion which had been furnished to them by the Council for 
Virginia. The fourth complaint in the original official 
English document before being translated into French is as 
follows : ^ " Captain Argall acknowledges that he took the 
French ship in question within the limits of our colony, 
(she tried by force to intrude there against the privileges 
granted to the said [Virginia] Company), by virtue of his 
commission under the Seal of the said Company, derived 
from the special power granted by his Majesty to said Col- 
ony under the Great Seal, but that nevertheless, the said 
ship had been restored at the request of the French Ambas- 
sador. Nevertheless his Majesty wishing the Ambassador 
to understand his desire to give every possible satisfaction 
has ordered Captain Argall to give an account of his reasons 
for this arrest whenever the Ambassador shall desire, and 

^ See The Genesis of the United States, vol. ii., pp. 733, 734. 



218 UNDER THE COMPANY 

that Turner, his Lieutenant, shall do likewise as soon as he 
is able to return." 

The Privy Council had been asked to send a circular 
letter in behalf of the Virginia lottery to several cities and 
towns ; but the Council Board decided to make a stay of 
those letters until the various foreign controversies in which 
the company was now involved had been gotten into a more 
satisfactory shape. 

August 29, James I. wrote to the States General asking 
them to extend their leave of absence to Sir Thomas Dale, 
as his continued presence in Virginia was essential during 
this crisis. This request was granted on September 30. 

On October 17, Gondomar wrote from London to his 
king : " The ship in which they offered me that Don Diego 
de Molino should bie brought in has returned without him. 
Two Englishmen, who were in the same vessel and whom 
I had charged, without the one knowing of the other, to 
bring me a very detailed account of the state in which 
matters were over there, to see if it agreed with what I 
have been told by others, . . . have returned and brought 
me letters from Don Diego, which one had sewed between 
the soles of his shoe, while the other had them in a coil 
of rope, as I herewith send it to Your Majesty ; bedause 
they knew if it was found that they carried these let- 
ters, they would be hanged, without being allowed to say 
a word." According to Gondomar's previous letters the 
English had promised to return Molina, and he had sent 
out spies, on board the Elizabeth, which ship had returned 
to England in May. These letters, etc., had evidently 
been brought by the Treasurer in July ; which ship left 
England in 1612, before Gondomar's arrival there. The 
spies may have been sent on that ship by Velasco. How- 
ever, Gondomar wrote Phihp a long account of Virginia 
aifairs. He tells the king that the EngHsh in Virginia 
would be only too glad if he would remove the colony 
by force, as the most of them were kept there against their 
wUl. " And here [in England] this Colony is in such 



ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614 — APRIL, 1G15 219 

bad repute that not a human being can be found to go 
there in any way whatever. So much so that a person who 
was present, has told me how in a Court of the Mayor of 
London, when the case of two Moorish [negro?] thieves 
came up, the Mayor told them, impressing upon them their 
offences, that they ought to be hanged ; but that, taking 
pity upon them, he wished to pardon them, with this con- 
dition, that they should go and serve the King and the 
Queen in Virginia — and that they replied at once, de- 
cidedly and with one accord, that they would much rather 
die on the gallows here, and quickly, than to die slowly so 
many deaths as would be the case in Virginia." I do not 
know whether they were sent to Virginia, or not. 

I have not the details, but I infer that the negotiations 
over the expulsion of the Jesuit colony from New England 
were progressing to the satisfaction of la Marquise de 
Guercheville, as she wrote to Secretary Winwood on Octo- 
ber 21, as follows : " I have learnt the obligation I am 
under to you, before having the happiness of knowing you, 
which makes me doubly thank you, and entreat a continua- 
tion of your courtesy for the reparation of the great wrong 
which has been done me, and for the recovery of the 
Frenchmen who remain in Virginia. I promise that I shall 
be infinitely obliged for what shall be returned in so just 
a restitution and even more will ever be your most obliged 
and affectionate to serve you." 

October 30, 1614, Captain Ralph Hamor, who had re- 
turned in the Treasurer from Virginia, entered at Stationers' 
Hall for publication his " True Discourse of the present 
estate of Virginia, and the successe of the affaires there 
till the 18. of June 1614," etc. It is dedicated to Sir 
Thomas Smith, whom he praises greatly for " upholding of 
this imployment, though it appeared, in the beginning, as 
full of discouraofement." 

The celebrated Dr. John Woodall was one of the chief 
medical advisers of the managers during the administra- 
tion of Sir Thomas Smith. 



220 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Early in November, the John and Francis was sent to 
Virginia " with 34 men and 11 women, with apparell and 
other necessaries for the rest of the Colony there resi- 
dent." 

The Michaelmas term of the Virginia quarter courts was 
held on November 26. The records are missing; but it 
was probably this court which decided it to be best for the 
individual owners of the Bermudas, as matters then stood, 
to resign them to the crown, which was done on Decem- 
ber 3. 

December 22, Edmonds sent from Paris to Secretary 
Winwood an account of his conference with Villeroy and 
his audience with the king and queen of France, in reference 
to sundry complaints of the French against the English. 
And on January 9, 1615, he again wrote to Winwood, 
inclosing a copy of the English complaints, which he had 
presented to Villeroy against the French. 

February 10, Gondomar again wrote to Philip III., for 
some reason still encouraging the hope that the colonies 
would come to nothing. 

On the next day the Hilary term of the Virginia quarter 
courts was held. The records are wanting. It seems pro- 
bable that " The Defense of Trade," by Sir Dudley Digges, 
was considered at this meeting. This tract was in reply to 
" The Trade's Increase," which had been written against 
the East India Company, and which is not so unjust to 
the Virginia Company as I thought when I wrote " The 
Genesis." I have since seen this tract, and it seems neces- 
sary for me to quote in fuU here the extract given in that 
work. 

"I cannot find any other worthy place of forraine an- 
chorage : for the Bermudas we know not yet what they 
will doe : and for Virginia wee know not well what to 
do with it, the present profit of those [colonies] not em- 
ploying any store of shipping, ... it is yet but Embrion, 
no question a worthy enterprise and of great consequence, 
much above the Marchants levell and reach, and [yet ?] 



ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614 — APRIL, 1615 221 

sure in regard of the great expences they have bene at, 
and the poore returne that is made, they are much to be 
re-garded and commended for holding out so long, I could 
wish that as many of the Nobility and gentry of the Land 
had willingly Imbarqued themselves in the labour, so the 
rest of the subjects, might be urged to help to forme and 
bring forth this birth not of an Infant, but of a man ; nay 
of a people, of a Kingdome, wherein are many Kingdomes. 
When Alcmena was in travel with Hercules, the Poets say 
Jupiter was faine to be Midwife ; and sure as we have the 
countenance of our earthly Jupiter,^ so we are humbly to 
emplore the propitious presence of our heavenly God, to- 
wards the perfection of this so great a worke. And so 
leaving to meddle further with what we have nothing to 
do, let us return to our ships," etc. 

As a further evidence from the contemporaries who ap- 
preciated the efforts of those who were managing the vari- 
ous enterprises for commerce, colonization, and discovery, I 
will quote the following from William Baffin to Sir Thomas 
Smith, Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. John Wolstenholme and 
others. 

" The Auntients had so much reofard to the worthies of 
those tymes, that any way sought the good and preferment 
of their country and commonwealth, that ingratitude was 
so far from them as they honoured yea with divine honour 
those to whom their country was in any way obleeged. 
But we which live in an age, termed by the poets, an iron 
age, are so far from honouring our worthies with due 
praise, that many had rather seek occation of slander than 
otherwise, although not against their persons, yet against 
their actions. You are the worthies of our time, whose 
many-fould adventures are such, which are not discouraged 
with spending and loss of many hundred nay rather many 
thousand, pounds ; reaping no other profit but only bare 
reports. But I fear if I should take on me to set forth 

^ Thus was fed the desire of James I. to be considered the father, and to 
be midwife at the birth of this nation. 



222 UNDER THE COMPANY 

your due praise I should come so far short of the mark I 
aimed at, that it were better for me to leave it undone 
than badly done ; knowing that who so seeketh to amend 
Apelles picture had need be some good artist, and who 
so seeketh to set forth the worthie praise of our London 
Marchants, had need be more than a good rethoritian. 
But what need I spend time herein, when never dying 
fame hath, and will enroule your names in Tymes cheefest 
chronicle of Eternytie ; where no envious Momus shall 
have power to rase out the smallest tythe thereof." Why 
has history been so unjust to these men ? ^ 

Captain Argall, in the Treasurer, again sailed for Vir- 
ginia about February, 1615. 

On March 1, upon the humble suit of Sir Thomas Smith, 
with the rest of the company of Virginia, the Privy Coun- 
cil determined now to issue the letters (which had formerly 
been stayed), unto several cities and towns, in behalf of the 
Virginia lottery and enterprise. These circular letters from 
the Privy Council were handed to Sir Thomas Smith for 
distribution on March 4, and were at once sent forth, in- 
closing " A True declaration of the state of the English 
Colony in Virginia, together with a project by help of a 
lottery, to bring that work to the success desired." 

The letters which were sent to " the Mayor and Alder- 
men of Canterbury," to " the Deputy Lieutenants of Suf- 
folk," "the Corporation of Reading," "the Town of 
Dover," "the Borough of High Wycombe," and "the 
Corporation of Great Yarmouth," have been preserved. 
On April 23, the corporation of Great Yarmouth, "Or- 
dered (after the reading of a letter from the Lords of the 
Council for the encouragement and promotion of the State 
Lottery to uphold the plantation of Virginia) that the towne 
to the use of ye haven shall adventure in the same Lottery 
£25. and that every alderman and constable of every ward 
on Monday next in their severall wards shall use their best 
endeavours to incyte their able inhabitants to adventure 

1 See The Genesis of the United States, p. 1010. 



ENGLAND, APRIL, 1614 — APRIL, 1615 223 

and put in such sommes of money into the said lottery as 
wiUingly they will adventure therein, and to take a note of 
their names and sums of money adventuring to be sett 
downe and recorded in the said Booke for Virginia." 

So many of the records are still missing that in order to 
understand this movement we must constantly keep in view 
the fact that " past politics " was the main factor in the 
actual origin of this nation, and also in suppressing the 
real history thereof. The chief agents were the patriot and 
court parties. The patriots, " the advocates of the f reeborn 
rights of Enghshmen," " considering that in the proceed- 
ings of King and court, the ordinary transactions by men of 
all conditions were mostly directed towards the advance- 
ment of absolute power and tyranny in England," had de- 
termined to afford "those best affected to ReHgion and 
Liberty " an opportunity to " with-draw themselves from an 
oppressing unto a more free government which they de- 
signed establishing in Virginia." 

The members of the court party, while James I. was act- 
ing as prime minister, began " to give encouragements on 
aU hands to disturb and interrupt these forward proceed- 
ings ; " they finally succeeded in putting a temporary stop 
to them, and in obliterating the honorable designs of the 
patriots from the page of contemporary history. 

The Virginia court and the royal court were now becom- 
ing headquarters of the rival political parties. 



XVI 

VIRGINIA, JANUARY, 1615 — APRIL, 1616 
SIB THOMAS DALE, MARSHAL AND DEPUTY-GOVERNOR 

The John and Francis, wliich sailed from England " the 
first week in November 1614, with 34 men & 11 women, 
with apparell & other necessaries for the rest of the CoUony 
there resident ; " with an order to Marshal Dale " to send 
home by the next ship Eliezer Hopkins ; " with a special 
order obtained by Gondomar from James I., for Molina, 
etc., probably arrived at Jamestown in January or February, 
1615o " The Brief Relation " says that she only brought 
" about twenty persons and httle or noe provisions for 
them." Unfortunately there are periods during which we 
have no complete and impartial account of events in the 
colony, and this is one of them. I do not know exactly 
when the John and Francis arrived or when it left. It may 
have taken a part, at least, of the tobacco crop of 1614 ; 
but I do not know. We know that the Flying Horse (or 
Hart) of Flushing was here in the summer of 1615, and 
that she carried some tobacco from the colony to Ports- 
mouth, England ; but we have none of the particulars. 
We know that Thomas Rolfe, the son of John and Re- 
becca Rolfe, was born in Virginia, and named for Sir 
Thomas Dale, who was probably his godfather; but we 
have no particular account of his christening. Captain 
Argall, in the Treasurer, sailed from England, in January 
or February, 1615, probably via his " fishing " grounds 
along the New England coast, and arrived in Virginia in 
the summer of 1615 ; but we have none of the particulars, 
and no impartial account of his acts in Virginia. " The 
Brief Relation " says : " The Tresorer, arived here with the 
number of twenty persons and little provisions, in which 



VIRGINIA, JANUARY, 1615— APRIL, 1616 225 

ship after many other designes were effected by Sir Thomas 
Dale, as makinge spoile of the Keschiacks and Warisco- 
yacks ; impaling some necks of lande, for defence against 
the Salvadges ; and in fishinge for our relief e, &c., he de- 
parted from Virginia." 

At the Michaelmas quarter court, 1619, Sir Edwin San- 
dys reminded the Virginia Company " that the maintenance 
of the public, in all States, was of no less importance, even 
for the benefit of private men, than the root and body of 
a tree are to the particular branches. And touching the 
pubHc he was first to present to their remembrance, how by 
the admirable care and diligence of two worthy Knights, 
Sir Thomas Gates and Sir Thomas Dale, the colony was set 
forward in a way to great perfection ; whereof the former. 
Sir Thomas Gates, had the honour to all posterity to be the 
first named in his Majesty's patent of grant of Virginia, 
and was the first who, by his wisdom, valour and industry, 
accompanied with exceeding pains and patience in the midst 
of so many difficulties, laid a foundation of that prosperous 
estate of the Colony, which afterward in the virtue of those 
beginnings did proceed. 

" The latter Sir Thomas Dale, building upon those foun- 
dations with great and constant severity, had reclaimed 
almost mu'aculously those idle and disordered people, and 
reduced them to labour and an honest fashion of life ; and 
proceeding with great zeal to the good of this Company, 
set wp the common garden ^ to yield them a standing rev- 
enue, placed servants upon it, as also upon other publick 
works for the Company's use ; established an annual rent 
of corn from the farmers, and of tribute corn from the bar- 
barians ; together with a great flock of Kine, goats, and 
other cattle, being the goods of the Company for the ser- 
vice of the public." 

Since the departure of Ralph Hamor from the colony 
John Rolfe had been the secretary and recorder, and al- 
though we have not his letters and records of particular 

1 " Laid off public lands." — Stith. 



226 UNDER THE COMPANY 

events, liis ^'Relation of Virginia" (written) in 161G gives 
a fair idea of the condition of the colony from Jnly, 1G14, 
to March, IGIG. The greater portion of the colonists were 
seated or occupied in or ahout the fork of the James and 
Appomattox rivers, planting corn and tobacco, building, im- 
paling, fortifying, etc. Their stockades, impalings, block- 
houses, etc., were much like those afterwards used against 
the Indians by " those who came after them " in winning 
our West ; and they had already begun to clothe themselves 
(in part at least) "as the naturals do, with skins and furs," 
and as some of our pioneers of the West afterwards did. 

Rolfe, after mentioning the peace with the Indians, 
writes : " The great blessings of God have follo\ved this 
peace, and it, next under him, hath bredd our plentie — 
everie man sitting luider his fig tree in safety, gathering 
and reaping the fruits of their labors with much joy and 
comfort." He mentions some of the same products as 
Ilamor. He says, " For hemp and flax none better in 
England or Holland. . . . Likewise tobacco (though an 
esteemed weed), very comnu)dious, Avhicli there thriveth so 
well, that no doubt but after a little more trial and expense 
[experience ?] in the curing thereof, it will compare with 
the best in the West Indies. 

" For fish and fowl, deer and other beasts, reports 
and writings have rather been too sparing than prodigal. 
About two years since, Sir Thomas Dale, (whose worth 
and name, in concluding this peace, and managing the 
affairs of this Colony, will out last the standing of this 
plantation,) found out two seasons in the year to catch fish, 
namely, the Spring and the Fall. He himself tooke no 
small paines in the tryall, and at one hall witli a seine 
caught five thousand three hundred of them as big as cod. 
The least of the residue, a kind of salmon trout, two foot 
long ; yet durst he not adventure on the mayne skule for 
fear of breakino: his nett. . . . And whereas, heretofore 
we were contrained yearly to go to the Indians and intreat 
them to sell us corn, which made them esteeme verie basely 



VIRGINIA, JANUARY, 1616 — APRIL, IGIG 227 

of US — now the case is altered ; they seeke to us — coino 
to our towns, sell their skins from their shoulders, which 
is their best garments, to buy corn — yea, some of their 
pettie Kings have this last year borrowed four or five hun- 
dred bushels of wheat, for payment Avhereof, this harvest 
they have mortgao-ed their whole countries, some ot' them 
not much less in quantitic than a shire in England, By 
this means plentie and prosperitie dwelleth amongst them, 
a;nd the fear and danger ol' famine is clean taken away, 
wherewith the action hath a long time suil'ered injurious 
defamations. 

'' The general mayne body of the planters arc divided 
into — 1. OMcers; 2. Laborers,, and 3. Farmors — (1.) The 
officers [soldiers, guards, etc.] have the charge and care as 
well over the farmors as laborers gcnerallie — that they 
watch and ward for their preservation, etc. 

" (2.) The Laborers are of two sorts — 1'* those em- 
ployed only in the generall works, who are fed and clothed 
out of the store. 2'"' others, specially artificers, as smiths, 
carpenters, shoemakers, taylors, tanners, etc. do work in 
their professions for the colony, and maintayne themselves 
•with food and apparrell, having time lymitted them to till 
and manure their ground. 

"3. The Farmors live at most ease — yet by their good 
endeavours bring yearlie much plentie to the plantation. 
They are bound by covenant, both for themselves and 
servants, to maintainc your Majestie's right and title in 
that Kingdom, against all foreign and domestic enemies. 
To watch and ward in the townes where they are resident. 
To do thirty one days service for the colony, when they 
shalbe called thereunto — yet not at all times, but when 
their own busines can best spare them. To maintayne 
themselves and families Avith food and rayment — and 
every farmor to pay yearlie into the magazine, for himself 
and every man servant, two bairell and a half a ])iece 
[tithe?] of their best Indian wheat [corn], which amount- 
eth to twelve bushells and a halfe of English measure." 



228 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The profit on tobacco tempting the men to neglect their 
corn, Sir Thomas Dale required each man to " set two acres 
of ground with corn, which doing they may plant as much 
tobacco as they will, else all their tobacco shalbe forfeite 
to the Colony — by which means the magazine shall yearly 
be sure to receive their rent of corne." 

" The places which are now possessed and inhabited are 
six — 1. Henrico and the lymitts ; 2. Bermuda Nether 
Hundred ; 3. West and Sherley Hundred ; 4. James 
Towne ; 5. Kequoughton ; 6. Dale's-Gift. 

" At Henrico, and in the precincte (on the north side) 
are thirty eight men and boys, whereof twenty two are 
farmors, the rest officers and others, all whom maintayne 
themselves with food and apparrell. Of this town one 
Capt. Smaley hath the command in the absence of Capt. 
James Davis. Mr. Wm. Wickham minister there, who, in 
his life and doctrine give good examples and godly instruc- 
tions to the people. 

"At Bermuda Nether Hundred (on the south side of the 
river) are one hundred and nineteen — (The houses and 
dwellings of the people are set round about by the river, 
and all along the pale, so far distant one from the other, 
that upon anie alarme they can succor and second one the 
other), about seventeen of these were members of the cor- 
poration of the Bermuda towne (so called by reason of 
the strength of the situation, were it indifferently fortified) ; 
the other residents there, labor generallie for the colonie, 
making pitch, tar, potashes, charcole and other works, and 
are maintayned by the magazine — but are not of the cor- 
poracoun. At this place (for the most part) liveth Capt. 
Yeardley deputy marshall and deputy governor [in 1616]. 
Mr. Alexander Whitaker (son of the reverend and famous 
divine Dr. Whitaker), a good divine hath the ministerial 
charge here. 

"At West and Sherley Hundred [settled since June, 
1614, when Hamor left], on the north side of the river 
lower than the Bermudas three or four myles, are twenty 



VIRGINIA, JANUARY, 1615 — APRIL, 1616 229 

five, commanded by Capt. Maddison — who are imployed 
onely in planting and curing tobacco — with the profitt 
thereof to clothe themselves and all those who labor about 
the generall business. 

'• At Jamestown are fifty, under the command of Lieut. 
Sharpe, in the absence of Capt. Francis West — whereof 
thirty-one are farmors; all these maintayne themselves with 
food and raiment. Mr. Richard Buck minister there — a 
verie good preacher. 

" At Kequoughtan, are twenty, whereof eleven are farm- 
ors ; all these also maintayne themselves as the former. — 
Capt. George Webb, commander. Mr. Wm. Mays, min- 
ister. 

" At Dales-Gift (being upon the sea, neere unto Cape 
Charles, about thirty myles from Kequoughtan,) are seven- 
teen, under the command of one Lieutenant Cradock ; all 
these are fedd and maintayned by the colony. Their labor 
is to make salt and catch fish at the two seasons afore- 
mentioned. [This settlement had been made since June, 
16U.] 

" So the number of officers and laborers are two hundred 
and five ; the farmors 81 ; besides women and children, in 
everie place some, — which in all amounteth to three hun- 
dred and fifty one persons — a small number to advance so 
great a worke." 

Probably less than fifty of these had arrived since the 
last coming in of Sir Thomas Gates (August, 1611); the 
rest belonged to that historic band long known as "the old 
planters of Virginia." 

Rolfe gives " the number of neate cattle, horses and 
goats, which were alive in Virginia at Sir Thomas Dale's 
departure thence : 83 cows, heifers and cow calves, 41 
Steers and 20 Bulls — in all 144.— Mem'? 20 of the cows 
were great with calfe. — 3 Horses and 3 Mares ; 216 Goats 
and Kidds male and female ; Hoggs, wild and tame, not to 
be numbered ; Poultry, great plenty." 

The Treasurer, Captain Argall, probably left Virginia 



230 UNDER THE COMPANY 

about the 1st of May, 1616, taking Sir Thomas Dale, Cap- 
tain John Martin, John Rolfe, his wife Rebecca, and her 
infant son, Thomas Rolfe ; " ten or 12 old and young, 
men and women of the country [Indians] to be educated 
in England ; " the alcayde Molina (Dale started with Lym- 
brye also, but had him executed at sea), and, it may be, 
Captains Francis West and James Davis, as they were ab- 
sent from the colony when Rolfe wrote his Relation. The 
ship also carried some " exceeding good tobacco, Sasafras, 
pitch, potashes, sturgeon, cavear, clapboard and other such 
like commodities as yet the country yielded." They " left 
the Colony in great prosperity and peace," with Captain 
George Yeardley as deputy-governor and deputy-marshal. 



XVII 

ENGLAND, MAY, 1615 — NOVEMBER, 1616 
END OF THE JOINT STOCK PERIOD 

The John and Francis probably returned from Virginia 
in May, and the Edwin from the Somers Islands about the 
same time. 

May 27, the Easter term of the Virginia quarter court ; 
we have no record. 

July 8, the Trinity term of the Virginia quarter court; 
no record. On the following day the special charter of 
the Somers Islands Company was signed and sealed. Sir 
Thomas Smythe was also governor of this company, the 
quarter courts of which were to be held (as their sub-courts 
had previously been) exactly one week later than those of 
the Virginia Company, July 15 being the day of their first 
court. ' 

The Flying Horse (Hart?) of Flushing reached Ports- 
mouth, England, from Virginia, with at least 105 pounds of 
tobacco on board. This is the first definite account that I 
have of tobacco from Virg'inia reaching: Ens^land ; but it is 
certain that it had been sent before this both from the Ber- 
mudas and from Virginia. "An advice how to plant to- 
bacco in England," which was published this year, says : 
" The Tobacco which comes from the Barmuda is cast away 
either by neglecting to prune it, or else because they nourish 
over-many leaves on one stalke, which they do either out 
of Ignorance, or for that they coult to have the greater 
quantity, or otherwise ; because, as I heare, they imitate the 
Spaniards in juicing it : that place would otherwise give us 
that which is excellent and so would Virginia. . . . 



232 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" The people of the South-parts of Virginia esteeme it 
exceedingly, and so doe the rest : they say that God in the 
creation did first make a woman, then a man, thirdly great 
maize or Indian wheat, and fourthly. Tobacco : They use 
it for the curing of wounds,^ and in smoke as we doe : and 
there are superstitious led to beleeve that when they are in 
danger of drowning in foule wether, that if they cast To- 
bacco into the water, that the billow will fall, and grow 
lesse. . . . 

" The Virginians [Indians] call Tobacco, Opoak [Stra- 
chey says ' Uhpooc '], and it is everywhere, and in Eng- 
land itselfe, greater, according to the soyle : yea it differs 
in taste, thicknesse, largenesse, and goodnesse almost in 
every Garden wherein it is planted." 

At a court, on November 13, the East India Company as- 
sert their continued desire " to discover things yet unknown 
or uncertain, for the future good of posterity." 

The Michaelmas term of the Virginia quarter court was 
held November 25 ; the Somers Islands quarter court De- 
cember 2. No records. 

November 27, the drawing of the second great lottery 
for Virginia began, at the west end of St. Paul's Church. 

During the fall and winter Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Thomas 
Monson, Sir William Monson, and Robert Carr, Earl of 
Somerset, were arrested on suspicion of having revealed 
divers secrets of state to the Spanish ambassador to the 
great danger of the king and kingdom, and of receiving 
pensions from the king of Spain. They were finally re- 
leased. 

The Hilary term of the Virginia quarter courts was held 
on February 10, 1616. It was a most important court, and 
it is especially unfortunate that the records are missing. 
The period of the joint stock was now coming to an end. 
It was to continue for seven years after the date of the 
new enlargement of the company, and the new charter was 
not signed until June 2, 1609 ; but the charter had been 

1 It is still so used. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1615 — NOVEMBER, 1616 233 

granted, the company organized, and the promise made to 
divide the lands acquired under the joint stock in Vu-ginia 
at the end of seven years, in February, 1609 ; and subscrip- 
tions at once began to be handed in. The company had 
now to prepare to carry out that promise, and at this court 
it was resolved to issue " A Brief Declaration of the pre- 
sent state of things in Virginia, and of a Division to be now 
made, of some part of those Lands in our actuall possession, 
as well to all such as have adventured their moneyes, as also 
to those that are Planters there." This tract or circular was 
soon published by " His Majesties Counseil for Virginia." 
The first share of land in Virginia which I have found 
any record of " granted from the companie accordinge to 
the Kinges letters Pattents " under the act of this court 
was issued to Mr. Simon Codrington on March i%, 16jf, 
and this was about as soon as any shares could have been 
issued by the company. 

The Easter quarter court was held on May 25, but we 
have no records. 

On June 13, 1616, Sir Thomas Dale returned from Vir- 
ginia on board the Treasurer, Captain Samuel Argall, with 
the celebrated Spaniard Molina, John Rolfe, and his wife 
Matoaka, and about ten Indians old and young. The ship 
■was loaded with " exceeding good tobacco, Sasafrix, pych, 
potashes, Sturgyon & cavyare & other such like commod- 
ities as yet that country yields." Dale at once wrote to 
Secretary Winwood, " May it please your honor to under- 
stand that I am by the myghtye power of the Allmyghty 
God, saufly retourned from the hardest taske that ever I 
undertooke & by the blessinge of God have with pour 
means left the Collonye in great prosperytye & peace con- 
trary to manye mens Exspectatyon ... I shall with the 
greatest speed the Wynd wyll suffer me present myself unto 
you and gyve you full satisfaction of those parts. How 
beneficial this admirable country will be to our state . . . 
being inhabited by his Majesties subjects — will put such a 
bit into our ainchent enimies [Spain's] mouth as will curb 
his hautyness of monarchic." 



234 UNDER THE COMPANY 

He readied London about June 20, when Lord Carew 
wrote to Sir Thomas Roe : " Sh' Thomas Dale has returned 
from Virginia : he hathe brought divers men and women 
of that countrye to he educated here, and one Rolfe, who 
married a daughter of Pohetan (the barbarous prince) 
called Pocahuntus, hathe brought his wife with him into 
England. The worst of that plantation is past, for our 
men are well victualled by their owne Industrie, but yet no 
profit is returned." 

Molina was now in London, and on June ||, the Privy 
Council had the following entry made in their regis- 
ter : — 

" This day Antonio da Costa delinciro presented a certi- 
ficate under the hand of Sir John Digby, Knight, Vice- 
Chamberlen to his Ma"® and late Ambassador with the 
Kinge of Spayne bearing date the 26, of January 1616 (stilo 
novo), Importinge in effect — That John Clarke an English 
Pylott taken formerly by the Spaniards in Virginia, then 
brought into Spayne and imprisoned, was safely delivered 
into his hands, & that the said John Clarke was then freely 
in his house. And might goe at liberty whether it pleased 
him. Forasmuch as Antonio da Costa ^ was formerly bound 
in an obligation of .£1.000. penalty that if [sic] the 
said Clarke should be delivered as aforesaid. And that 
the said obligation is in the hands and custody of Mr. 
Cottington now in Spayne. He hath therefore prayed 
that notice may be taken of the said certificate and for his 
idempnity entry may be made thereof in the Register of 
Councell Causes." So this Virginia matter was a Council 
case; but the records of the Council from January, 1602, 
to May, 1613, inclusive, which might have shed more light 
on the case, are now missing. 

On July 2, Chamberlain wrote from London to Carleton, 
at the Hague, about Dale's return, telling him that Vir- 
ginia was a good country to five in, etc., " but there is no 

^ See Gondomar's letter of October 5, 1613, iu The Genesis of the United 
States, p. 659. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1615 - NOVEMBER, 1616 235 

present profit to be expected," and that Dale would return 
to Holland " witliin a month or little more," etc. 

The Hilary quarter court (February 10) had determined, 
in order to procure the means for sending a new governor 
with commissioners and a surveyor for dividing the land 
among the planters and adventurers, etc., to require "so 
many adventurers as will partake of this first dividend to 
contribute ^12 10s, payable within one month after sub- 
scription, and to enter their names and the number of 
their shares in a book at Sir Thomas Smith's for that pur- 
pose, before July 5." This was the day before their Trin- 
ity quarter court, which met on July 6. I do not suppose 
that Codrington was the 07ily one of the old adventurers 
who secured a share in this first " divident " of land by 
paying £12 10s ; but it appears that he was the first to 
do so, and I have no record of the rest. The subscriptions 
received (before July 5) were not sufficient to enable the 
court (of July 6) to send the new governor at once ; but, 
after consulting with Sir Thomas Dale, Captain John Mar- 
tin, and Mr. John Rolfe, the court determined to send out 
" a magazin." The colonists were already devoting them- 
selves to planting tobacco, known to be very vendible in 
England. " For which, as for other commodities, the 
Councell and Company for Virginia determined to send a 
ship thither, furnished with all manner of clothing, hous- 
liold stuff and such necessaries to establish a magazin there, 
which the people shall buy at easie rates for their commodi- 
ties — they selling them at such prices that the adventur- 
ers may be no losers. This magazin shalbe yearlie supplied 
to furnish them, if they will endeavor, by their labor, to 
maintayne it — which wilbe much beneficiall to the plant- 
ers and adventurers, by interchanging their commodities, 
and will add much encouragement to them and others to 
persevere and follow the action with a constant resolution 
to uphold the same." 

The Susan, the first magazine ship, sailed from England 
late in July or early in August. Soon after the sailing of 



236 UNDER THE COMPANY 

this ship John Rolfe wrote " A true relation of the State of 
Virginia," at the time when Sir Thomas Dale left it in 
May, 1616. It was not printed. Of the two copies remain- 
ing one was sent " To the King's most sacred Majesty," the 
other to " Sir Robert Rich." He says of the climate that 
" it is so agreeable to our constitutions, that now 't is more 
rare to hear of a man's death there than in England among 
the same number of people." But it must be remembered 
that in the four years prior to Rolfe's return the company 
had sent less than one hundred emigrants, and those now 
remaining in Virginia had become acclimated. Although it 
was advisable to explain away some, and to omit other 
things, the relation seems fairly accurate, and one of the best 
of the time. He says that " the greatest miseries happened 
under the first form of government [the king's] ; that after 
the change in the government, the colony stood at a stay 
for a time, but soon began an improvement which had con- 
tinued. The Colony gradually, but constantly becoming 
more and more self-sustaining." 

Under these favorable reports, it is certain that the pre- 
parations for sending a new governor, with commissioners, 
etc., continued ; but we have few of the particulars. 

" About midsomer 1616, five persons departed from these 
Islands [the Bermudas] in a smal open boat of some 3 tunn 
and after 7 weeks arived al safe in Ireland — ye like hath 
scarce bene heard of in any age." 

The men arrived in England in October, and it was 
" thouofht half a miracle how so small a vessel should 
brook those seas seven whole weeks, and not be swallowed 
up in the vast ocean." Gondomar wrote to Philip III. 
that they made the voyage in less than twenty days. 

At a meeting of the company, or Council, on November 
18, 1616, " Capt. John Martin was allowed in reward ten 
shares in Virginia." He afterwards located these shares at 
Martin's Brandon on James River, and several clauses (grant- 
ing special favors) in his patent, or charter, gave rise to a 
long-continued controversy, mingled with much bitterness. 



ENGLAND, MAY, 1615 — NO VEMBER, 1616 237 

The joint stock period was now ending, and other arrange- 
ments had to be made for carrying on the enterprise in the 
future. 

Many of the patriotic members of the Virginia company 
had placed their trust in Henry, Prince of Wales. " The 
lio-ht of the Court seemed to them much obscured after the 
setting of that bright Star," causing them to renew their 
care in advancing their colonization plans. Spain was the 
old adversary of England, and they had determined to 
secure a portion of America for England because the land 
was claimed by Spain. They were opposed to dallying 
with Spaniards, and soon after Gondomar arrived they 
asserted that the court party was under his influence, and 
this caused them to be less frequent at court, and to spend 
more time in forwarding their Virginia designs. 

The reports from Virginia at the return of Dale gave 
them "additional encouragement," and "frequent consulta- 
tions were now had of their designs in the Assemblies of 
the Virginia Councell and Company, and otherwise amongst 
those who were most distasted with the proceedings of the 
[Royal] Court, and stood best affected to Religion and 
Liberty ! " These meetings caused James I. to regard "the 
Virginia court as a Seminary for a seditious Parliament, 
which forced them to a more close and considerate proceed- 
ing in those affairs. But the meetings being authorized by 
severall Patents gi-anted under the Great Seal did exclude 
or divert the Prerogative-destructive intrusion ; whilst a 
number of great Lords and some others remained sedulous 
and united towards the right ends declared." 



XVIII 

VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1616 — MAY, 1617 

CAPTAIN GEORGE YEARDLEY, DEPUTY-MARSHAL AND DEP- 
UTY-GOVERNOR. THE ENDING OF THE JOINT STOCK AND 
STRONG GOVERNMENT PERIOD 

The "Brief Declaration" (of 1624) states that "Sir 
Thomas Dale left the government to Captain George Yard- 
ley, under whom the Colony lived in peace and best plenty 
that ever it had till that time, yet most part of the people 
for that year of his government continued in the general 
services following their labors as Sir Thomas Dale left them 
by order." The reflection in the last part of this extract 
is partisan and must be considered accordingly. The " un- 
varnished " fact is that the people continued on the joint 
stock plan under which they went, or were sent, to Vir- 
ginia. 

Yeardley had been commandant at Bermuda City and 
Hundred, which names had been changed to Charles City 
and Hundred (being so called for Prince Charles, as the 
next plantation above had been named Henrico for Prince 
Henry), and he continued to reside there for a part of his 
time ; but as governor he was obliged to reside partly at 
Jamestown. He had seen the importance of tobacco as a 
commodity, and encouraged its cultivation from the fkst. 
There was a good crop planted in the spring of 1616, and, 
as most of those now in Virginia had become acclimated, 
there was no hindrance to its proper cultivation and care 
during the summer and fall. Everything went along quietly, 
and nothing of importance happened until the arrival of 
the Susan, about October 9, 1616. This was the first mag- 
azine ship, which brought sundry necessaries, provisions. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1616 — MAY, 1617 239 

clothing, goods, etc., which were exchanged with the colo- 
nists for their tobacco. Mr. Abraham Peirsey came on this 
ship, as cape-merchant, and had charge of the magazine or 
company's store in Virginia. It seems to have been the 
only ship to reach Virginia during Yeardley's present gov- 
ernment, and as it came in after the sickly season of 1616, 
those who came on it did not have to go through their 
" seasoning " until after the arrival of Argall. To make 
the voyage in the fall, and to reach Virginia about Novem- 
ber, was finally found to be the best plan. The sun was 
not so hot in the tropics (en route), and the emigrants had 
some time in Virginia, in which to become " hardened," be- 
fore " the sickness " of the following summer began. 

Sir Richard Hawkins, who sailed from England for North 
Virginia in October, 1615, after remaining there some 
months, passed along the coast to Virginia in 1616, and 
stayed there some time ; but I have not the details, nor the 
exact dates. 

" At Christmas, 1616, just occasion being given by the 
Indians of Chiquohomini in many and several kinds of 
abuses, and in deriding of our demands, wherunto they had 
formerly agreed and conditioned with Sir Thomas Dale to 
pay us yearly tribute. . . . These and the like grosse 
abuses moved our governor. Captain George Yeardley, to 
levy a company of men to the number of eighty-four, to be 
revenged upon those contemptuous Indians, which he, ac- 
cording to his desire, fully executed, and returned home 
with the spoile of them ; concluding, before his departure 
from them, a more firm league in appearance than formerly 
was, for that it continued unviolated almost the space of 
two years." 

At the end of the account of this war in Smith's history 
it is stated that " Captaine Yearly had a salvage or two 
so well trained up to their peeces, they were as expert as 
any of the English, and one he kept purposely to kill 
him fowle. There were divers others had salvages in like 
manner for their men." Purchas adds to this: "Yet whiles 



240 UNDER THE COMPANY 

he [Yeardley] stayed in the government they lived quietly 
with the Savages." And Stith in his History of Virginia 
says : " But the Captain's [Smith's] authority is rendered 
very suspicious in this, by the Records of our General 
Court. For long after, the Governor and Council, received 
some queries from England, the fourth whereof was : What 
was the cause of the Massacre, and who first taught the 
Indians the use of fire arms f Whereupon, in a court 
held the 1st of November [0. S.] 1624, Robert Poole and 
Edward Grindon, gentlemen, ancient planters and inhabit- 
ants of the country, appear, and declare, upon oath, their 
knowledge of the matter. Their depositions entirely clear 
Mr. Yeardley, and shew him to have been very cautious 
and careful in that Point ; and they throw the whole Blame 
upon Captain Smith himself. Sir Thomas Dale, and some 
other inferior officers and private persons." 

In March, 1617, the three years' time of service of the 
incorporators of Bermuda City (now called " the corpo- 
racoun of Charles citty ") expired, and they being freed, 
" with humble thanks to God, fell cheerfully to their own 
particular labors." This was the beginning of the end of 
the " joint stock " period in Virginia, but the company 
continued to send men who had to work out their passage, 
as well as servants of sundry sorts. 

When Captain John Martin went to England with Dale 
in the spring of 1616, he left Henry Coltman to plant his 
ground at Charles City in corn and tobacco, under the 
supervision of his friend Rev. Alexander Whitaker of 
Henrico, who sent his man, John Flood, to aid Coltman. 
Whitaker was drowned in March, 1617, dying intestate. 
When Martin returned in May he found no corn ; he held 
Governor Yeardley responsible for his loss, and this was the 
beginning of a long and bitter dissension between them. 
Martin sued Yeardley, and some of the depositions in the 
case have been preserved. The governor deposed that he 
had turned over Whitaker's property to his servant Thomas 
Hobson, " who was as his son and child kejH by him in 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1616 — MAY, 1617 241 

his life time," and tliat Hobson had used the corn in feed- 
ing himself, Jarrett HoUock, John Flood, and one Ruben, 
the other servants of Mr. Whitaker. Martha Sizemoure, 
who Hved at Mr. Whitaker's house both before and at the 
time of his death, knew nothing of his owing Martin any 
corn, and stated that Whitaker had been obliged to buy corn 
for himself from Thomas Dowse. And thus the trouble 
began. We might as well attempt to write the history of 
a city on the records of its police court as the history of the 
colony on such evidence as had its origin in some dispute, 
faction, or controversy. Those who wish to find out the 
truth, which is essential to history, have constantly to regret 
the loss of so much of the authentic evidence. 

At the end of Yeardley's government the outlook was 
hopeful. It was becoming, thanks to tobacco, more and 
more evident that the colony would finally be self-support- 
ing, and the demand for a strong government in Virginia 
was decreasing. 

The Dutch were becoming more and more active in mak- 
ing discoveries to the north of Virginia, establishing trad- 
ing-stations there for furs, etc. 



XIX 

ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 

BEGINNING TO FORM A NEW GOVERNMENT FOB THE NEW 

NATION 

The first efforts (1606-1609) had been in tlie nature of 
prospecting. The second efforts (1609-1616) had been to 
plant the colony on James River. In 1609 the managers, 
having become familiar with the climatic and other condi- 
tions, decided that the best way to accomplish their object 
was to send out a large expedition, and not to cumber the 
colony with numerous newcomers, to be going through the 
seasoning each year (as the yearly death rate would have 
been fatally discouraging to the enterprise in its infancy), 
until the country was somewhat cleared and a fast hold 
had been taken there. The first expedition of their first 
effort under this plan, owing to the tempest, had resulted in 
failure ; but the second expedition under Lord De la Warr, 
and the second attempt under Dale and Gates, in 1611, 
had finally resulted in success, and at the return of Dale 
to England, in 1616, the colony was regarded as a settled 
plantation. The managers had now to devote themselves 
to their third object, or effort, namely, to settling the col- 
ony under such a form of government as would prove a sure 
foundation for the new nation which they had planted in 
the New World. Sir Thomas Smythe's health began to 
decline in 1616, when he was about fifty-nine years old, 
and " in regard of his sickness and other imployments," as 
then given out to the public, " it was determined to chose 
Sir Edwin Sandys as his Assistant in the management of 
the affairs of the Virginia Company, and he did in a man- 
ner wholie supplie Smith's place for the last two years." 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 243 

Sir Thomas Smytlie, however, continued to give his atten- 
tion to the strictly business portion of the enterprise, with 
Robert Johnson as his deputy; while Sir Edwin Sandys, 
who had drafted the popular charters, was especially inter- 
ested in planning a form of government for the colony 
under those charters. It necessarily took time to formu- 
late and to put into execution the proposed new form of 
government. As the joint stock period was coming to an 
end, it was determined to send over to Virginia, at once, 
a new governor, with commissioners, surveyors, etc., to 
divide the shares of land among the old planters, and as 
the colony was now somewhat cleared and planted, it was 
resolved to begin sending new settlers to occupy the land. 
(Less than one hundred had been sent during 1612-1615.) 

November 28, 1616, the preparative court was held, and 
on the 30th the Michaelmas quarter court, at which Admi- 
ral Samuel Argall was elected to be the present deputy- 
governor in Virginia, Captain Ralph Hamor, vice-admiral. 
Captain John Martin, master of the ordnance, and John 
Rolfe, secretary and recorder. The records are incomplete, 
and I do not know who were chosen as land commission- 
ers, surveyors, etc. And it is not absolutely certain that 
Sir Edwin Sandys was chosen as assistant to Sir Thomas 
Smythe by this court ; but it was either at this court, or at 
the following Easter court. May 31, 1617. As at all times, 
but especially at such important periods as this, the loss of 
the records is greatly to be regretted. 

December 3, 1616, Rev. Richard Hakluyt, " one of the 
first patentees " and a firm friend of the colony, died. 

December 7, Gondomar wrote to Philip III. : " In Vir- 
ginia matters are said to go on better since they have made 
peace with the Indians ; but in spite of all that they com- 
plain very much of the misery endured there by the Eng- 
lish, who are there. . . . Here, however, they preserve these 
places [Virginia and the Bermudas] very carefully, as it 
appears to them that they will be very useful to England, 
if there should he war with Spain. And I feel sure that 



244 UNDER THE COMPANY 

for this reason and for honour's sake they will never give 
them upJ' 

The definite end of the joint stock period was reached on 
December 10, and in the auditing- of " the old accounts from 
the beginning of the Plantation 'till the 30. Day [0. S.] 
of November, 1616," differences arose between the audi- 
tors over the accounts of the old officers. These disputes, 
spreading into the company, caused parties to be formed, 
which finally resulted in much controversy, crimination, and 
recrimination, even in the records themselves, thus creating 
another serious stumblinof-block before the historian who 
wishes to find out and to give the real facts. But although 
many minor details are still unknown, the broad outlines 
are now sufficiently distinct and clear. As Gardiner well 
says, " the claim of Spain had practically broken down. 
Virginia had been colonised." The colony was becoming 
self-supporting ; the value of Vii'ginia tobacco was being 
acknowledged, and the laying of the actual foundation had 
begun. 

The period of the joint stock having come to an end, the 
colony still needing help, and the resources of London hav- 
ing been constantly put to the test from the beginning, 
the company now determined to establish running lotteries 
from time to time in other cities of the kingdom. On De- 
cember 29, 1616, the Earls of Sheffield, Pembroke and 
Southampton, Lords Paget and Cavendish, Sirs Thomas 
Smythe, Edwin Sandys, Dudley Digges, and John Danvers, 
and Esquires John Wrothe, Richard Martin, and John 
AVolstenholme, wrote to the municipal authorities of the 
city of Salisbury, asking them to assist the agents of the 
company (Gabriel Barber, and Lott Peere) in running a 
lottery in that city for upholding the plantation of Vir- 
ginia. 

Captain Samuel Argall had been selected for deputy- 
governor of Virginia, and the company was preparing to 
send him there. At a meeting of the company, January 
18, 1617, Mr. Ralph Hamor had eight shares given him, 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 245 

and at another meeting, one week later, " Bills of Adven- 
ture were allowed to Capt. Raphe Hamor and the persons 
hereunder named for every man transported at their charge 
being 16, who were to have noe Bonds (viz*^.) : — 
" One Bill of £12. 10s, for Mr Rob. Sturton. 

" " " £25. — " " Christopher Martin. 
" " " £12. 108. " " John Blackall. 
" " " £50. — " " Tho : Hamor. 
« " " £62. 10s. " " Raphe Hamor. 
" " " £25. — " " Wm. Tucker. 
" " " £12. 10s. " " Elias Roberts. 16 sharesr 
The Hilary term of the quarter court met on February 
15 ; no records. 

There was an important meeting of the company, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1617, probably supplementary to the quarter 
court, " at which Dr. Laurence Chatterton renouncing all 
prizes by ye Lotterie had a Bill of adventure of £12. 10s. 
adventured in the Lottery — and Mr Stacy, ditto." 

" Capt. Argall and his Associates here undernamed were 
allowed severall Bills of Adventure for transport of 24 per- 
sons at their charge — viz^ 

" One BiU of £25. — to Sir Wm. Lovelace, Knt. 
£50. — " " Antho Archer, " 
£50. " Mabell Lady Cullamore. 
£50. " John Argoll Esquire. 

£25. " John Tredescant. 

£100. — " Capt. Sam. Argoll." 
At the Hilary court, or at this court, "His Majesties 
Councell for Virginia " formulated, or agreed upon, a cir- 
cular, which was soon after published as a broadside, in 
which they tell the people of England " that there wants 
nothing for the setling of that Christian Plantation, but 
more hands to gather and returne those commodities which 
may bring profit to the Adventurers, and encouragement 
to others ; " that the company had given a commission to 
Captain Samuel Argall to be the present governor of that 
colony ; that himself and friends had undertaken to carry 



246 UNDER THE COMPANY 

thither a certain number of men ; " that divers men of 
good qualitie had resolved to go thither themselves in per- 
son, and to carry with them their wives, their children and 
their families, whereby in short time (by the favour and 
assistance of Almighty God) that good work may be 
brought to good perfection, by the division and setting 
out of lands to every particular person, the setling of trade, 
and returne of commodities to the contentment and satis- 
faction of all Well affected Subjects, which eyther love the 
advancement of Religion, or the honour and welfare of this 
Kingdome ; " and that they had resolved to give free leave 
to any man now in Virginia, at his pleasure to return into 
England, etc. 

The Indians brought from Virginia by Sir Thomas Dale, 
in May, 1616 (to be educated in England), attracted much 
attention. Purchas says that " he often conversed with 
Uttamatomakin (commonly called Tomacomo) one of Po- 
hatan's counsellors, at his good friend's Master Doctor 
Goldstone's, where he was a frequent guest, and where he 
sang and danced his diabolical measures, and discoursed of 
his country and Religion, Sir Tho : Dale's man being the 
Interpreter." But the one who attracted most attention 
was Matoaka, or Rebecca, the wife of John Rolfe. Pur- 
chas says that she " did not only accustom herself to civil- 
itie ; but still carried herself as the daughter of a King, 
and was accordingly respected not only by the company, 
which allowed provision for herself and her son, but of 
divers particular persons of Honor, in their hopefull zeal 
by her to advance christianitie. I was present, when my 
Honorable and Reverend Patron, the Lord Bishop of Lon- 
don [even then regarded as the head of the Church in Vir- 
ginia], Doctor King entertained her with festivall state and 
pompe, beyond what I have scene in his great hospitalitie 
afforded to other Ladies," 

Smith, in his " General History," published a " little 
Booke," which he says that he " writ to Queen Anne " 
before Pocahontas arrived at London, to make her qualities 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 247 

known to the queen, etc. The letter was certainly super- 
fluous, so far as the interests of Pocahontas were con- 
cerned, as the letters from Dale, Whitaker, Rolfe, and 
Hamor, relative to the crowning events in her life, had 
been published in 1615, and she was in charge of people 
who held the right to introduce her to the queen in person. 
After she arrived. Smith says that he had an interview 
with her, in which she told him, " They did tell us alwaies 
you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Pli- 
moth ; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to 
seeke you, and know the truth, because your countriemen 
will lie much." ^ 

Pocahontas was introduced at court by the lord governor 
and captain-general of Virginia, and Lady De la Warr, w^ho 
showed her every attention. On January 16, 1617, they 
took her to see " Christmas his Mask " (written by Ben 
Jonson), when the new-made earl (Buckingham) and the 
Earl of Montgomery danced with Queen Anne. Chamber- 
lain, in his news-letter, from London, on January 28, 1617, 
to Sir Dudley Carleton, at the Hague, tells him that " the 
Virginian woman Pocahontas, with her father's coun- 
saillor, hath been with the King and graciously used ; " and 
that both she and her assistant were well pleased at the 
mask. He says : " She is upon her return (though sore 
against her will) if the wind would come about to send 
them away." She was to return with Argall on the George, 
but died at Gravesend, prior to March 31, 1617, where the 
parish register contains this entry, " Mar. 21, 1616 [0. S.] 
Rebecca Wrolfe wyffe to Tlibmas Wrolfe gent., A Virginia 
lady borne was buried in the chauncell." Purchas says : 
" At her returne towards Vircrinia. She came at Graves- 
end to her end and grave, having given great demonstra- 
tion of her christian sinceritie, as the first fruits of Vir- 

1 In an old copy of Smith, which this sentence : "To find Smith and in- 

formerly belonged to Robert Boiling, qnire of him whether he was dead ! a 

of Chellowe, a descendant from Poca- very comical commission grand-mama, 

hontas, there is the following: note on en verity. R. B." 



248 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ginian conversion, leaving here a godly memory, and the 
hopes of her resurrection, her soul aspiring to see and 
enjoy presently in heaven, what here she had joyed to hear 
and beheve of her beloved Saviour." 

In the course of a few months, in 1616, at least three of 
the Indians, brought from Virginia by Dale, had died at 
the house of Sir Thomas Smythe, in Philpot Lane, Lang- 
borne Ward, London, and were buried at St. Dionis church, 
in the same ward. They did not stand the climate of Eng- 
land much better than the English did that of Virginia, 
although they were amply provided for in every way. 

" In furtherance of the hopefull zeal of divers particular 
persons of Honor [inspired by Matoaka ?] to advance chris- 
tianitie among the Indians," King James, before he set out 
for Scotland, on March 24, 1617, or soon after his return 
in September following, issued a circular letter to the 
archbishops, requiring them to write letters to the several 
bishops of the dioceses in their provinces, who were to 
2'ive order to the ministers and other zealous men of their 
dioceses, to make collections "for the erecting of some 
churches and schools for ye education of ye children of 
those Barbarians in Virginia. Said collections to be made 
in all the particular parishes four severall times within 
these two years next coming; to be turned over to the 
Bishops of ye Dioceses, and by them transmitted half yearly 
to the Archbishops, who were to deliver the amounts to the 
Treasurer, of that Plantation, to be employed for the godly 
purposes intended, and no other ! " 

There were two things needful for carrying on the plan- 
tation — money and people. To obtain money (owing to 
the great expense and as yet no profit) it was necessary, as 
we have seen, to resort to lotteries. To obtain people to 
continue the clearing of the country (owing to the now 
well-known great mortality in Virginia) it was necessary 
for some years to take any that could be gotten of any sort 
and on any terms. On March 22, 1617, the Privy Coun- 
cil, at Whitehall, entered at large a warrant for delivering 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 249 

malefactors of certain kinds to Sir Thomas Smythe, to be 
transported into Virginia or other parts beyond the seas, 
with proviso, that they return not again into England. 
And James I., while at New Castle (May 3-15), on his 
progress to Scotland, " propounded that such as were now 
to be transplanted should be sent to Virginia, and not to 
other parts beyond the seas." 

In "The Genesis of the United States" (1605-1616) 
I believe that I have given James I. the credit due him, 
which is a very great deal ; for unquestionably he was the 
great friend to the colonization enterprise, from his point 
of view, at all times ; and prior to 1617 he seems to have 
been more willing to concede favors (even yielding his own 
ideas of government, colonization, etc., and his royal pre- 
rogatives) to the managers than to oppose their interests in 
any way. But soon after Sir Edwin Sandys began formu- 
lating his designs for the government of the colony, the 
king began to intermeddle in the management, and con- 
tinued to do so more and more, until the company, largely 
through his instrumentality, was disruj^ted and the popular 
charters annulled. It is evident, however, from subsequent 
warrants, that Sir Thomas Smythe continued to send trans- 
ports to India, and that the total number sent to Virginia 
was not large. And as to these, it was then said that " bar- 
barous offenders were winked at, and innocent soules either 
out of private spleene or for greedy gaine, sent awaie." It 
is doubtful if any other class of white labor could have 
been secured to open up tide-water Virginia at that time 
than such as were sent. The planters soon began to sub- 
stitute negroes, and as it was found that they withstood 
the climate during the summer better than the whites, in the 
course of time they came to supply the places of the lower 
classes of white labor almost entirely. 

" A Charter of Land was granted to Captain Samuel 
Argall and his associates bearing date the 20 March 1616," 
that is, March 30, 1617, N. S. He sailed from Gravesend 
for Virginia in the early part of April, 1617. His special 



250 UNDER THE COMPANY 

missions were for dividing and setting out the shares of 
land to the old planters in Virginia, locating new private 
plantations, or hundreds, for the adventurers in England, 
etc., and only to make a beginning towards setthng the 
proposed new form of government. 

" The Virginia Company in London about January 
1617 granted a patent unto Captain John Martin for him 
and his assignes free Traffique on the Baye and Rivers in 
those parts of Virginia which belong unto the said Com- 
panie." For certain considerations Martin assigned this 
patent to Captain John Bargrave of Patricksborne in Kent, 
and, on March 15, the company allowed Bargrave fifteen 
shares of land in Virginia, and his brother George (who 
married Martin's daughter Dorcas) was allowed five shares. 
Bargrave says " that relying upon the said patent, he to 
his great charges furnished the Edwyn of London with 
men and wares of good value fit for the said plantation, 
and sent the same with the said Capt. Martin into Vir- 
ginia." This pinnace sailed from England about the 23d 
of April, 1617. 

Heylyn says " in the latter part of the 16th and early in 
the 17th centuries many English youth were sent to Geneva 
to study the Reformed Religion out of an opinion [in which 
Heylyn did not agree] which their parents have that it is 
no where so purely practised and profesed as there. And 
thus being seasoned with Genevan Principles have many 
times proved disaffected to the forms of government (as 
well Monarchical as Episcopal) which they found established 
here at home, to the great embroilment of the State in 
matters of most near concernment." The government of 
Switzerland was popular, and the liberty of Switzerland 
made the independence of Geneva, which became the capi- 
tal of the Great Cause. Sir Edwin Sandys (son of Rev. 
Edwin Sandys, one of the first who conformed to the Pro- 
testant Religion and afterwards Archbishop of York) was 
one of those alluded to. He was a member of the Chftrch 
of England, but he favored " the emancipation of the 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 28, 1616 — NOVEMBER 26, 1617 251 

human mind," in matters of reUgion — religious liberty. 
He was " at harte opposed to the government of a mon- 
archie," and favored civil liberty. He said, " he thought 
that if God from heaven did constitute and direct a frame 
of or"overnment on Earth it was that of Geneva." And he 
aimed to introduce such a popular form of government and 
" to erect a free state in Virginia." Such a firm believer 
in the royal prerogative as James I. being king, it was very 
necessary for Sandys to move slowly and with great diplo- 
macy in putting such ideas as his into effect. Yet although 
so much of this evidence has been destroyed, and so much 
of that which remained was set forth especially to obscure 
or to obliterate such facts, it can now be seen that, al- 
though the laws of the colony were required to conform 
to the laws of England, each succeeding company charter 
(drafted by Sandys) and each succeeding instruction (drawn 
by Sandys and others) to Argall, De la Warr, Yeardley and 
Wyatt, for establishing their government in Virginia, was 
leavened more and more with the Genevan idea. Sundry 
references remaining relative to the instructions given to 
Argall at this time, and to De la Warr some months later, 
are sufficient to show this ; but the evidence is not sufficient 
to enable us to go into the details. As to the subsequent 
instructions to Yeardley and to Wyatt, however, the evi- 
dence is more ample. 

Monday, May 29, was preparative court day and on the 
31st the Easter quarter court met. Sir Thomas Smith 
was reelected treasurer, as he had been each year since the 
institution of the courts, and, as the officers of the com- 
pany were annually elected at the Easter term, Sir Edwin 
Sandys was probably chosen as his assistant at this time. 
This was done either at the Michaelmas or Easter court 
during the period of this charter ; but I cannot be certain, 
because nearly all of the records for this very important 
period are still missing. The celebrated Dr. Francis An- 
thony was admitted for eight shares at this court. 

At a company court of July 5, Mr. John Haulsey was 



252 UNDER THE COMPANY 

admitted for four shares. July 12 was Trinity quarter 
court ; but we have no records. At a court on August 9 
" a bill of Adventure of .£43 15s. was sealed to Mr. Dar- 
nelly." 

In the course of time those shares which had not been 
granted at a quarter court were called in question, and be- 
came the cause of much dispute ; but most, if not all, of 
them were finally allowed to stand, in whole or in part. 

In September, James I. returned from Scotland and 
about the same time Robert Cushman and John Carver, as 
agents of the Pilgrim church at Leyden, came over to try 
to arrange for the removal of the Pilgrims to Virginia. 
They had consultation and communication " with diverse 
select gentlemen of his Majesties Counsell for Virginia," 
over " the Seven Articles of the Church of Leyden . . . 
occasioned about their going to Virginia." They " found 
the Virginia Company in general well disposed, and gained 
an active friend in Sir Edwin Sandys (a prominent member 
of the Company and brother of Sir Samuel Sandys, the 
lessee of Scrooby Manor), who, though no Puritan, was a 
firm advocate of toleration." ^ 

The George had returned from Virginia ; the company 
were preparing to send her back as a magazine ship, and 
the council was holding (as was not infrequently the case) 
weekly courts. I suppose that the petition of the Pilgrims 
was considered at these courts, but the records are lost. At 
a meeting on October 4, Mr. Berblock was admitted ; on the 
17th, Peter Arundell was granted a bill of adventure (David 
Watkins being cashier of the company), and, on the 24th, 
John Arundell was granted a bill of adventure (of £37 
10s ?). 

November 7, Sir Ralph Winwood, " his Majesties Secre- 
tarie died of a burning fever." 

^ Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. iii. p. 265. 



XX 

VIRGINIA, MAY, 1617 — APRIL, 1618 

CAPTAIN SAMUEL AEG ALL, ADMIRAL AND DEPUTY-GOVEBNOB, 
ESTABLISHING THE COLONY 

Governor Argall in the George sailed from Graves- 
end after March 31 ; lost sight of the Lizard April 21 ; 
" came a north course and anchored 25th of May before 
Point Comfort ; " he must have had very favorable winds, 
as this was a very quick passage ; found the people there 
well, tillino^ OTOund for corn and tobacco. May 27 or 28, 
Captain John Martin arrived in the Edwin (Captain George 
Bargrave), after a five weeks* passage. ArgaU then went 
up to Jamestown, where, finding all boats out of repair, he 
sent Captain Martin's pinnace to the north to fetch the boats 
" ye fishing company " gave him. John Pountis owned 
stock in this fishing-company ; I have found only brief re- 
ferences to it, but I believe it to have been on the New 
Enoland coast. Arg-all broup-ht with him Vice- Admiral 
Ralph Hamor, Secretary and Recorder John Rolfe, and 
others " to the number of a hundred persons, partly at the 
charge of the company and partly at the charge of private 
adventurers." " He found the colony in all parts well stored 
with corn, and at Charles Hundred a granery well furnished 
by rents lately raised and received from the farmers." Ac- 
cording to a report made at a Virginia Company court in 
May, 1620, " Gov^ Yeardley delivered to him a portion of 
public land called the Company's garden, which yielded 
unto them in one year about £300 profit. Fifty-four 
servants employed in that same garden and in salt-works 
set up for the service of the colony ; tenants, eighty-one, 
yielded a yearly rent of corn and services, which rent- 



254 UNDER THE COMPANY 

corn, together with the tribute corn from the barbarians, 
amounted to above twelve hundred of our bushels by the 
year ; kine, eighty, and goats, eighty-eight." This does 
not represent the whole state of the colony at that time, 
but only the estate of the public or company. 

Other accounts, unfriendly to Yeardley, state that he 
found all things in much disorder ; " in Jamestown but 
five or six houses, the church down, the Palizados broken, 
the Bridge in pieces, the well of fresh water spoiled ; the 
store-house being used for the church ; the market-place, 
streets and all other spare places planted with Tobacco ; " ^ 
that he was kindly received " by Captaine Yeardley and 
his companie in a martial order, whose right hand file was 
led by an Indian ; " that " the salvages were as frequent 
in their houses as themselves whereby they were become 
expert in our armes, and had a great many in their custodie 
and possession ; the Colonic dispersed all about, planting 
Tobacco." 

The quarter court at which Argall was made deputy- 
governor " instructed him for the laying and seting out by 
bounds and metes certain lands ; " but most unfortunately 
we have few particulars of his acts in these premises. Re- 
cords missing. 

It seems certain, however, that he located definitely the 
then bounds of the four great " Incorporations and Parishes 
of James Citty, Charles Citty, the citty of Henricus and Kic- 
cowtan," as well as certain private lands and plantations 
within these corporations. 

June 17, the governor issued a proclamation to this pur- 
port : " Goods to be sold for 25 per cent and tobacco at 
three shillings pr pound — and not under or over — penalty 
3 years slavery to the colony." Tobacco was then some- 
times sold in England as high as ten shillings per pound. 
The fixing of so moderate a price for it to be traded at for 
goods in Virginia was soon resented by the planters. It 
was the beginning of the efforts of the governing power 

1 Arber's reprint of Captain John Smith's Works, p. 535. 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1617 — APKIL, 1618 255 

(which has continued to this day) to squeeze all the revenue 
possible out of the plant ; and it would be interesting to 
know how much this " vile weed " (so-called) has contrib- 
uted to the support of the governments of the world. 

At the same time Argall issued a proclamation against 
" John Hudson sometimes provost Marshall generall for 
divers crimes . . . condemned to die and according to let- 
ters from Sir Thomas Smythe, to Sir Thomas Dale, reprieved 
in hope of amendment, now guilty of more errors. There- 
fore to prevent ye danger in harboring so ungrateful a 
viper in the young and tender bosom of this so religious 
and hopefuU an action. He is exiled and banished [among 
the Indians] and if he returns to be put to death without 
further judgment." 

The George being now ready to return to England, with 
tobacco, etc., " Samuel Argall Esq — Admiral of Virginia 
during life and for the time present principal Governor " 
— wrote to the managers in England : " Desires 100 men 
with tools and that he will provide with victuals — Likes 
Jamestown better ^han Bermudas 40 miles above it, will 
strengthen it — Praises much ye healtheness of Jamestown 
and says that it was the fittest and convenientest place for 
unlading, being in the midst of the plantations, and there 
being a bridge to land goods at all times. Great plenty 
and peace. Sent Tomakin to tell Oppachancano of his 
arrival, he came to Jamestown and received a present 
with great joy. Tomakin rails against England, English 
people and particularly his best friend Sir Thomas Dale. . . . 
Powhawton is gone to ye King of Moy-umpes in Patawo- 
mack river and has left ye government of his Kingdom to 
Opachankano and his other brother. Thinks Hemp and 
Flax will grow well here, especially flax. Little trial yet of 
pOcoon, ^ but wdll proceed in it. Had instruction to plant 
anis-seed, but brought none — pray send some. Silkworms 
thrive exceedingly. Excellent wheat and Barley. Cattle 
thrive. Ground worne out with maize will bring English 

' ^ Sanguinaria, the bloodroot or puccoon of the Indians. 



256 UNDER THE COMPANY 

grain. Want ministers, Mr. Whitaker being drowned. 
Desires another Governor to be sent, in ye meantime will 
use his best endeavours on which he prays they will put ye 
best construction. Desires Sir Dudley Digges may solicit 
the archbishop to give Mr. Wickham power to administer 
the sacrament there being no other parson." 

The first plantations located at the charge of private ad- 
venturers under the commissions sent by Argall were : I. 
" Smythe^s Hundred from Tanks Wayonoke [Sturgeon's 
Point] to the mouth of Chicahominy river, containing 
about 80,000 acres on the north side of the James." II. 
" Argcdl and his associates,'' at Argall's Town near the 
Chickahominy on the north side of the James. III. " Ha- 
mor and his associates.'' IV. "Martin and his associ- 
ates," at Martin's Brandon above upper Chippoake Creek 
on the south side of the James. The settlers for the first 
three plantations came on the George, being about eighty ; 
those for the last came in the Edwin, being between twenty 
and thirty emigrants. 

We are told that there was a great mortality among the 
colonists during the summer of 1617, " far greater among 
the Indians and a morrain amongst the deer." Those who 
had arrived in the Susan, George, and Edwin were going 
through their first " seasoning." 

In 1616, the Somers Islands Company sent out a bark of 
small size, but an excellent sailer, called the Hopewell, " un- 
der Captain [John] Powell, a good mariner and very well 
traded in all the West Indies, and he soon carried his ves- 
sel into piratical courses ; but finally reached the islands." 
Early in 1617, Governor Daniel Tucker sent him to the 
West Indies for cattle. He returned in the spring with 
three Spanish prizes, their chief lading being hides. The 
governor took the prizes and the booty, and " sharply ques- 
tioned PoweU of a misdemeanour and little less than a 
piracy." But Powell was a man of a daring spirit, and he 
soon sailed for England to bring the case before the court 
of admiralty. Some time after he left, probably early in 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1617 — APRIL, 1618 257 

the fall, Governor Tucker, being seized with apprehension, 
sent a pinnace to Virginia with Edward Waters, Thomas 
Hellicott (a Frenchman), and some others, — the open pre- 
tense being to obtain cattle, the real object to carry the 
hides away from the islands ; and the report was given out 
that in an effort to tan the hides they were spoiled. The 
pinnace soon reached Virginia, and remained there, having 
turned the Spanish hides over to Argall. 

This fall Mr. Lambert found out that tobacco cured bet- 
ter on lines than in heaps. 

The corn crop not meeting expectations in the fall of 
1617, Argall sent out the Somers Islands frigate (which 
had brought the hides) and a pinnace to trade for corn with 
the Indians, " that brought us neere six hundred bushels 
more, which did greatly relieve the whole colonic." 

November 30, 1617, George White was pardoned, under 
the seal of the colony, " for running away to ye Indians 
with his arms and ammunition, which fact deserves death 
according to ye express articles and laws of this colony in 
that case provided," etc. Anthony Edwards and Henry 
Potter were also pardoned about the same time, for crimes 
which were capital under the old laws.^ 

Captain Samuel Argall, '• admiral of Virginia during his 
life, and present governor," issued the following commis- 
sions during the year 1617 : — 

^' Several Commissions to trade to ye North parts of Vir- 
ginia [New England]. Several commissions for command- 
ers of the several Hundreds, etc. 

" One to William Powell making him Captain of the Gov- 
ernor's guards and Company, Lieut-Governor and Com- 
mander of Jamestown, the blockhouses and people there. 

" One to Capt. Nath. Pool [Powell] to be serjeant major 
general to Francis West master of ye ordinance during life. 

" And by Instructions from Lord La Warr, Lord Gov- 
ernor &c, Argall made Nathaniel West captain of the Lord 
General's Company. 

1 We may find a parallel to " the 1618 in the California Laws of 1848- 
old laws of Virginia during 1607- 1855. 



258 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Also the following Warrants. 

" To 3 or 4 to examine witnesses and report to ye Gover- 
nor. 

" To Masters of ships not to let their sailors go ashore or 
talk with ye people at Kequoughtan. 

" To some persons to trade with Indians. 

" To the Ranger of ye forest at Kiqotan to take ye In- 
dian spies or hogstealers, contrary to ye articles of peace. 

" And the following ' Confirmation : ' — 

" Divers cattle given to the captains and others with ye 
female increase in lieu of their places were absolutely sold 
[confirmed] to them on November 25*^ 1617." This act 
the Council in England afterwards decided as being illegal 
and unauthorized. 

On December 7 the governor received a letter from the 
recorder (John Rolfe) and nine others, citizens of Bermuda 
Hundred, stating that they had refused to let Captain 
Madison clear their account, etc. 

The governor replied on the 10th : " I will not infringe 
your rights being a member of that city [corporation] 
myself, but I beg that ye Colony servants may stay there 
this year." 

February 13, 1618, " the Governor orders the Com- 
mander of Kequotan not to let sailors come ashore or 
people to go aboard ; because when ye sailors heard of 
men's deaths they Imbezelled the goods sent them. Also 
ordered the commander to notify the Governor on the 
arrival of any ships." 

March 2, 1618, Argall issued a proclamation at Ber- 
muda City, making WilHam Cradock provost marshal of 
Bermuda City and of all the hundred thereto belonging. 

The Edwin, which had arrived in Virginia in May, 1617, 
for the purpose of settling Martin's Brandon, and trading 
under Martin's patent, was " by the Governor denied free 
trade, neither was she suffered to trade in anything but by 
the warrant of the said Governor upon paine of death, by 
meanes of a book of lawes imprinted and there remayne- 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1617 — APRIL, 1618 259 

inge, and of private letters write by ten of the Megazine 
Companie unto the said Governor, which Megazine Com- 
panie was then newly erected by the Virginia Company, 
and whereof the said Sir Thomas Smith, Sii' John Wolsten- 
holme, and Alderman Johnson are the principal in adven- 
turing in the said Megazine or joynt stock, which letters 
were to this effect, that the Governor should not suffer the 
Tobacco and Sassafrasse to come over in private hands 
but by the Megazine for the good of the Companie. By 
meanes whereof the said plain tif [Captain John Bargrave], 
as he affirmeth not only lost the benefit of his /ree trade, 
but also his said ship was enforced to stay there about 13 
moneths [absent from England] to his extraordinary great 
chardge and damage." ^ 

The magazine was a part of the company, and its man- 
agers were trying to protect those who, at great expense, 
had made this trade. But the ship was finally allowed to 
have some trade. On March 12, 1618, Captain John Mar- 
tin bought 300 pounds of tobacco from Richard Crudge, 
brother to Mrs. Mary Tew, of London, payable in Sep- 
tember following ; and the Edwin sailed from Virginia 
about eight days thereafter with 3100 pounds of tobacco 
received in trade for Captain John Bargrave, and about 
5000 pounds belonging to the Virginia Company (maga- 
zine) and the passengers. 

The effort to open Virginia to free trade, almost as soon 
as there had been created any real commodity for trade, 
first made by the Edwin under Martin's patent, marks the 
orio'in of several lawsuits and controversies, — Martin vs. 
Yeardley, Bargrave vs. Smythe, etc. As the plaintiffs 
went to law in chancery, the cases, almost as a matter of 
course, continued during life. A mass of matter remains 
in each case ; but the fact that the witnesses seldom give 
dates and its ex 2^ci7He character detract from its value. 

The Edwin carried sundry letters to England, — one, 

^ From Bargrave's deposition be- Jones, Sir Robert Rich, and Sir Ed- 
fore " My Lord Keeper, Mr. Justice ward Leeche," in February, 1622. 



260 UNDER THE COMPANY 

from the governor, of March 20, in which he tells " ye 
Company in what a rninous condition I found ye Colony by 
ye carelessness of ye people and lawless living, but I have 
improved almost everything. The citizens of Bermuda 
hundred claim ye privilege granted them which I can't 
refuse, and therefore I can't force the artificers there to 
follow their arts, to the great prejudice of the Colony. 
None hereafter to be made free of ye Colony 'till bound 
to follow their trades. Ship carpenters are contented to 
serve without ye wages agreed for All artificers sent upon 
wages to be undertakers to pay here. Corn don't amount 
to my expectations — so desii*e but 50 men to be sent — 
Indians so poor can't pay their debt and tribute — Pow- 
hatan goes from place to place visiting his country, taking 
his pleasure in good-friendship with us — lament's his 
daughter's death — but glad her child is living — so doth 
Opochankano ; both want to see him, but desire that he 
may be stronger before he returns — Want clothes and 
tools sent here — ground will hold out but three years 
and can't clear more for want of tools — Ploughs have been 
set to work for wheat, barley, peas, hemp, flax, and hath 
planted mulberry trees. Mr. Lambert has found out that 
tobacco cures better on lines than in heaps, and desires lines 
to be sent. Last summer a great mortality among us, far 
greater among the Indians and a morrain amongst the deer 

— Desire orders for Mr. Wickham and Mr. Maycock a 
Cambridge scholar, and a person to read for Mr. Wickham 
(his eyes being dim). Desire another Governor to be sent 

— all desire the Lord La Warr (who is our Lord Governor) 
to return to his government, where he will find all things 
in good order." 

At the governor's request, I suppose. Secretary and Re- 
corder-General John Rolf e drew up the following document, 
which was also sent by the Edwin : — 

" Certain Reasons touching ye most convenient times 
and seasons of ye year for ye Magazine ship to set forth 
from Enofland towards Virsfinia : — 



VIRGINIA, MAY, 1617 — APRIL, 1618 261 

"1. To come out In June and be here in September — 
a temperate time (Then is ye harvest of corn, and tobacco, 
and one man may tend and keep as much as two can house 
and cure). After Sejjtember wind blowing at No. West 
will make a long passage. 

" 2. Weather after Sepf — so unconstant that goods 
can't be landed or shipt without hazard or damage. 

" 3. Because few taylors in the colony and ye people 
wont cret their clothes time enouo;h for winter. 

" 4. You will then have ye best tobacco — ye bad not 
then ready. 

" 5. Your ships may get home by Candlemas before ye 
East India ships set out which will help ye speedy venting 
of tobacco. 

" 6. If the ship don't come before March (our seed 
time) we can't afford time to attend ye Magazine. 

" 7. For want of boats it will be 14 daies loss to a man 
in transporting goods in which time he may loose all his 
tobacco and corn. 

" 8. If ye ships return after April ye heat of ye hold 
will hurt ye tobacco. 

" 9. Furnish your Magazine with more than for ye pre- 
sent and let a continual trade be on foot and then at ye 
arrival of yoiu^ shipping you will have comodities ready [in 
the store] and they will be soon dispatched. 

" 10. If you grant more such commissions for general 
trade as you have done to Captain Martin you will over- 
throw your Magazine. 

" Conferr with ye bearer Mr. Dade, who has had a year's 
experience and can satisfie you in all points." 

Sir Walter Ralegh was at Mevis, in March, 1618, and 
sailed with the Gulf Stream along our coast in April, 1618, 
via Newfoundland to England. In the same month the 
chief of the Powhatan Indians, commonly called King 
Powhatan, died in Virginia. 



XXI 

ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 
ESTABLISHING THE COLONY 

On November 21, 1617, James I. wrote to Sir Dudley 
Carleton, his ambassador in the Netherlands, relative to 
Sir Thomas Dale ; and on the next day Sir Edwin Sandys 
wrote to Rev. John Robinson, and to his old friend Elder 
William Brewster,^ at Ley den, which letter was sent by their 
agents C ashman and Carver. These letters may have gone 
over at the same time. Sandys shows not only a willing- 
ness, but an anxiety, to have the Pilgrims settle in Virginia, 
if the parties (the church and the company) could reach a 
mutual agreement. As young men, William Brewster and 
Geortj'e Cranmer had been in service to2-ether under Wil- 
Ham Davison, secretary of Queen Elizabeth. George Cran- 
mer was an old friend and college mate of Edwin Sandys, 
whose father, the archbishop, was a friend to William 
Brewster's father, and thus these three young men became 
friends. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, George 
Cranmer (a grandnephew of the great Archbishop Cranmer, 
and brother to William Cranmer sometime an auditor of 
the Virginia Company) traveled into foreign countries with 
Edwin Sandys, who probably then imbibed his admiration 
for the government of Geneva and the desire for the op- 
portunity to test it which inspired him in drafting the Vir- 
ginia Company charters. Under all the circumstances of 
their past associations, it was most natural for Sir Edwin 
Sandys to wish to give his old friend Brewster the privi- 
leges of civil and religious liberty in the new colony. Al- 

^ For the letters in these premises, see Bradford's History of Plymouth Plan- 
tation. 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, ICl 7 — OCTOBER, 1618 263 

though it came to pass that Elder Brewster and the May- 
flower emigrants did not land in Virginia, their emigration 
was as much a result of " the popular policy " under the 
Virginia Company charters as was the House of Burgesses 
in Virginia. In fact, there was no other legal English 
authority under which they could have been sent to Amer- 
ica at that tune than the popular Virginia charters, and 
none to give them the legal rights (afterward acquired in 
1621) to settle beyond the bounds held under those char- 
ters. The changing of the charters in 1609 was the turn- 
ing-point in the destiny of this nation. 

November 29, 1617, the Michaelmas term of the Vir- 
ginia Company quarter courts met, at which Mr. Edward 
Woller passed seven shares (of <£12 10s apiece) to Mr. 
Gabriel Barber. No other record. 

The lord admiral had given several warrants for staying 
ships from Virginia wdth the object of making them pay 
duty on tobacco ; and about this time the Council and adven- 
turers of the Virginia plantation sent a petition to the king 
— which he referred to his Privy Council — asking that 
they may at least enjoy that " small remainder of the term 
of seven years contained in their Letters patent, and if pos- 
sible a longer term." After consideration, the Privy Coun- 
cil, on December 19, 1617, gave orders to the lord high 
treasurer of England to permit the duty free term to con- 
tinue as mentioned in the said grant, " and no longer." 

At a court, December 27, Sir Foulke Greville was ad- 
mitted into the Virginia Company. 

January 6, 1618, Lord De la Warr entered into a cove- 
nant with Edward, Lord Zouch, who adventured £100 with 
the lord governor in his present intended voyage to Vir- 
ginia. 

Robinson and Brewster replied to Sir Edwin Sandys on 
December 15, 1617, sending at the same time " their re- 
quests in writing, subscribed with the hands of the greatest 
part of our congregation, and have sent the same unto ye 
Counsell by our agent and a deacon of our church, John 



264 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Carver." " Their requests " were probably submitted to 
the Council of the Virginia Company at their meeting on 
January 17, 1618, (at which " Mr. John Taverner surren- 
dered to Mr. David Wiffin a bill of Adventure of £37 10s 
being 3 shares"), and to the Privy Council soon after, 
who required " a farther explanation in three points spe- 
cified." As to this Sir John Wolstenholme wrote at once 
to Messrs. Robinson and Brewster. 

January 18, Sir Robert Naunton succeeded Winwood as 
secretary of state. 

January 24, " Mr. [Marmaduke] Rayner to have a bill of 
adventure of four shares. Mr. Sidrake Soane surrendered 
unto Henry Fotherby one bill of adventure of three shares." 
These things were done at a Virginia court. 

February 10, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : " The Lord 
De la Warr is returning to Virginia and carries with him 
seven or eight score men. Sir Thomas Gates makes ac- 
count to follow him sometime next sommer." 

February 14, Hilary term quarter court of the Virginia 
Company. No records. At a private court on the 21st 
Samuel Tubman was allowed one share. 

Robinson and Brewster replied to Wolstenholme on Feb- 
ruary 6, sending " a further explanation of their judgments 
in the 3 points specified by some of his majesties Honor- 
able Privy Council." These papers were promptly handed 
to Wolstenholme by their agent.^ Sir John was not satis- 
fied with their explanation, but told the agent that " he 
would not show the letters, least he should spoil all. Both 
the king and the bishops having consented to their going. 
He promised to see Mr. Chancelor Sir Fulk Grevell, on 
Feb. 24, (on which day the Agent wrote to Rev. John 
Robinson), and to let the agent know more the next week." 
The agent met Sir Edwin Sandys on Wednesday night, the 
21st (after the meeting of the Virginia court of that day), 
and Sandys wished him " to be at the Virginia Courte ye 
nexte Wedensday, where I [the agent] purpose to be." 

^ S. B., or Sabin Staresmore. 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 265 

This court met on the 28th, but the only record of its acts 
which I have is a memorandum that " Mr. Wm. Berblock 
was allowed a Bill of Adventure of 5 shares." 

It must constantly be borne in mind that a court of the 
company, of the Council, of the committees, or some other 
sort, met on every Wednesday in the year save during the 
period of " the long vacation," and other vacations ; that 
the records of the company and of these courts are mostly 
missing, — in fact, for the first twelve years are almost en- 
tirely wanting. I do not know what was done for the agent 
at the court of February 28, or at those of March 7, 14, 21, 
etc. These were courts of the committees. On March 14, 
" a bill of adventure was granted Sir Samuel Saltingstone 
for three shares in Virginia," and this memorandum is all 
the record of the courts which I have. But their acts were 
probably favorable, because from other sources we know 
that Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Robert Naunton, Sir John 
Wolstenholme, and others were laboring with the king 
about this time for the guarantee of the liberty of religion 
requested by the Pilgrims in their proposed grant for lands 
in Virjrinia. When Sir Robert Naunton moved his Ma- 
jesty to give way that " such a people might enjoy their 
liberty of conscience under his gracious protection in Amer- 
ica ; where they would endeavour the advancement of his 
Majesty's dominions, and the enlargement of the interests 
of the Gospel," the king said it was " a good and honest 
motion." ^ 

Others wrought with the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
" who gave them some expectations, that they should never 
be disturbed in that exercise of religion at which they 
aimed in their proposed settlement." But neither the king 
nor the archbishop would allow or tolerate them by public 
authority, and the king would not confirm to them liberty 
in religion under his broad seal, according to their desires. 
They would be connived at and not molested, provided 
they carried themselves peaceably. " And this was all the 

1 Hanbury, vol. i. p. 392 note. 



266 UNDER THE COMPANY 

chief of ye Virginia companie or any other of their best 
friends could do in ye case. And with this answer ye mes- 
sengers returned [to Leyden, probably in March or April, 
1618], and signified what diligence had been used, and to 
what issue things were come." 

On March 15, the Privy Council wrote to Lord De la 
Warr " not to suffer Henry Sherley, son of Sir Thomas 
Sherley, to go with him to Virginia as he had made an 
escapq from imprisonment in the King's Bench where he 
had been confined upon an execution for debt, and it was 
thought would attempt to transport himself unto Virginia 
or some parts beyond the seas." Sherley was related to 
De la Warr's wife. On March 26, Chamberlain wrote 
to Carleton that " the Lord De la Warr is set forward at 
last toward Virgmia." Howes, in his chronicle, says : " At 
the beginning of April 1618, the Lord De la Warr with 
about eight score persons, viz. — men and women — went 
ye second time to Virginia to make good the Plantations^ 
He had been in bad health since his return, and " could 
not recover his perfect health until the last year in which 
he builded a very faire ship and went now in it himselfe." 

Lord De la Warr sailed about April 15. He had been 
preparing to go since the fall of 1617, and his long delay 
may have been owing to the hope that he would be able to 
carry the Pilgrims with him. He was lord governor of 
the colony for life. He went with instructions to make 
good his colony, which was now becoming somewhat self- 
sustaining, by establishing some form of government which 
had been designed by Sir Edwin Sandys. These instruc- 
tions were probably given him at November court, 1617 ; 
we have not the date of the issuing, nor the form of the 
government designed by them ; but owing to the lord 
governor's death they did not take effect, and it seems 
quite certain that they were renewed in whole or in part 
to his successor, Sir George Yeardley, and that they were 
at least somewhat similar to the document sometimes called 
" our Magna Charta." 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 267 

Late in April or early in May, the ship Treasurer, Cap- 
tain Daniel Elfrith, sailed from England with a commission 
obtained (from Charles Emmanuel I., " the Great Duke of 
Savoy," through the Count Scarnafissi, his ambassador in 
England) by her owners. Lord De la Warr, Sir Robert Rich, 
and associates, to prey upon the shipping of Spain, with 
the James River as a place of retreat, — a thing which the 
Spaniards had supposed to be the ultimate object of the 
English, and which they had dreaded from the first. 

The Edwin of London, George Bargrave captain, and 
James Bret master, arrived from Virginia on May 12. 
The next day Lord Admiral Nottingham issued his war- 
rant for her to pass up the Thames, his former orders to 
the contrary notwithstanding ; and the next day (14th), 
on a bond being given by '' Captain John Bargrave, part 
owner, and James Bret, master, to save harmless Edward 
Lord Zouch, Lord Warden as he is admiral of the Cinque 
Ports, the said ship with the goods contained therein were 
delivered to her part owner and master aforesaid." This 
ship brought 3100 pounds of tobacco to Captain John Bar- 
grave, as the result of a trade for " the wares of good 
value " sent over by him, and about 5000 pounds belonging 
to the Virginia Company and the passengers. Among the 
letters brought was one from Deputy-Governor Argall, in 
which he objects to Martin's patent (under which the Ed- 
win had traded) as being too broad, and causing a jealousy 
and contention or dissatisfaction among the other colonists. 
At the Easter term quarter court, which met on the 16th, 
this letter was considered, and a committee appointed to 
examine and reform the said patent. 

At this court Sir Thomas Smythe was reelected treasurer. 
Sir Edwin Sandys assistant, and Robert Johnson deputy- 
treasurer. Sir Eustace Hart surrendered unto Mr. Thomas 
Gibbs a bill of adventure of £25, and Mr. Gibbs, paying 
in £12 108 more, was allowed three shares. After sundry 
private meetings among themselves, the Earl of Southamp- 
ton, Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Danvers, and some others 



268 UNDER THE COMPANY 

had reached the conclusion that the old accounts, during 
the joint stock period, from the beginning of the plantation 
to December 10, 1616, ought to be audited, and this court 
appointed Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Danvers, Mr. J. 
Wroth, Mr. Maurice Abbot, and Anthony Abdey as au- 
ditors, to settle these accounts for the satisfaction of the 
world as well as the company. Anderson, in his " History 
of Commerce," states that " these five auditors prevailed on 
Sir Francis Bacon to write his excellent Instructions con- 
cerning New colonies." 

Captain John Bargrave says that when his 3100 pounds 
of tobacco arrived he was offered eight shillings the pound 
for it, but it was seized in the custom-house by the farmers 
of the custom for the sixpence per pound due the king, 
on the plea that he was not a member of the Virginia Com- 
pany, and therefore w^as not entitled to enter the tobacco 
duty free. He says that it took him so long to prove that 
he was a member, — so many obstacles being thrown in the 
way, — that before he could get his tobacco cleared, the 
George, the magazine ship of the company, arrived with 
20,000 pounds of tobacco, and the price fell to 5s del the 
pound. He held Sir John Wolstenholme, a farmer of the 
custom, chiefly responsible, but brought suit against Sir 
Thomas Smythe, as treasurer of the company, for his loss 
due to the fall in the price of tobacco, and the suit con- 
tinued as long as Sir Thomas Smythe lived. Eight shil- 
lings a pound then was worth about $800 to $1000 per 
hundred pounds now, and 5s 3d about $550 to $685 ; 
so it will be readily seen that tobacco was fast becoming 
better than a gold mine. Within a few years men were 
anxious to go to Virginia, regardless of the climate and all 
other difficulties, and it was then no longer necessary to 
obtain emigrants or laborers by force, etc. 

June 20, at a Virginia court. Sir Nicholas Tufton was 
admitted into the company. The next day, Edward, Lord 
Zouch, wrote to Captain Ward that he intended to adven- 
ture his pinnace with Mr. Bargrave to Virginia, and de- 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 269 

sired him to prepare the bargain and advise the best course 
to be taken therein. 

June 22, at an East India court, a letter was read from 
Henry Bacon (who had lately returned from Sir Walter 
Ralegh's voyage) to the governor of the company, Sir 
Thomas Smythe, stating "^tliat Don Diego de Molina, who 
was prisoner in Virginia incited the King of Spain, to send 
forces to suppress Virginia, by the hopes of a silver mine 
there, from which he shows a piece to justify the truth 
thereof." 

The governor of the Virginia Company wrote to the 
municipal authorities of Leicester on May 12, asking them 
to countenance and encourage a lottery which they were 
about to have opened in Leicester for the benefit of Vir- 
ginia, and the drawing took place on June 22. 

June 25 was preparative court day ; the 27th was Trinity 
term quarter court, at which " Sir Henry Rainsford was 
allowed a bill of adventure for 3 shares." No other record. 

July 3, Sir Thomas Smythe was appointed one of the 
commissioners of the navy. 

Gondomar took his leave of the English court on June 
18, but remained in London until July 26. " He sailed on 
July 30"\ with the popish priests, whom upon his earnest 
request the King had discharged out of prison." 

The author of " Vox Populi " (Rev. Thomas Scott, of 
Norwich, who fled to Utrecht) says : " At a great and 
special meeting of the whole Spanish Council of State held 
on the return of Gondomar from Eng-land in 1618. The 
President, the Duke of Lerma, said ... to advance the 
Catholique Romane religion and the Catholek Spanish 
dominion, together; we are now met, by his Majesties com- 
mand, to take account of you (Seigneur Gondomar) who 
have been ambassadour for England, to see what good you 
have effected there towards the advancement of this work, 
and what further project shall be thought fit to be set on 
foot to this end. And this is briefly the occasion of our 
meeting." 



270 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Gonclomar, in his long statement as to what he had done 
towards these ends, is made to say (among other things) : 
" Thirdly — As for their West Indian voyages, I withstand 
them in earnest, because they begin to inhabit there, and 
to f ortifie themselves ; and may in tyme there perhaps raise 
another England to withstand our new Spaine in America, 
as this old England opposeth our present state, and cloudes 
the glorious extent thereof in Europe. Besides, there they 
trade for commodities without waist of their treasure. . . . 
Therefore I crost whatsoever intendements were projected 
for Virginia or the Bermudas, because I see they may be 
hereafter really helpfull unto them, as now they serve for 
draines to unload their populous state, which else would 
overflow its own banks by continuance of peace, and turn 
head upon itself, or make a body fit for any rebellion. 

" And so farre I prevayled herein, as I caused most of 
the recusants, who were sharers, to withdraw their venters, 
and discourage the work, so that besides private persons, 
unable to effect much, nothing was done by the publique 
purse. And we hiow hy exjyerience, such voyages and 
plantations are not effected, ivithout great ineanes to sus- 
taine great difficulties, and with an unwearied resolution 
and power to meete all hazards and disasters with strong 
helps and continual supplyes, or else the undertaking 
proves idle.''^ 

" Vox Populi " was a fabrication, but it appealed to 
popular ideas, contained some truths, and was long and 
widely received as genuine history. 

Fuller in his " Church History of Britain " says : " Once 
King James in an afternoon was praising the plentiful pro- 
vision of England, especially for flesh and fowle, adding 
the like not to be had in all Spain, what one county here 
did afford. 

" ^ Yea but my Master,' quoth Gondomar, ' hath the 
gold and silver in the East and West Indies.' 

" ' And I, by my Saul ! ' saith the King, ' have much 
ado to keep my men from taking it away from him.' To 
which the Don's Spanish gravity returned silence." 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 271 

At a Virginia court on August 1, " Mr. Richard Paulson 
sold to Robert Hudson a Bill of Adventure of £50 — 
4 shares." At another court on the 3d, " Francis Baldwin 
was allowed a bill of adventure of <£12 10 — 1 share ; Ed- 
ward Crosse was allowed one personal share ; Thomas Nor- 
incott passed to Mr. Francis Meverell, 3 shares ; and Mr. 
Crowe passed to Mr. Wm. Bolton, 5 shares." 

Bradford says that the reports brought to Leyden from 
England by the agents or messengers in the spring of 1618 
" made a dampe in ye business," some fearing that the move 
to Virginia might " prove but a sandie foundation ; " " but 
some of ye cheefest thought otherwise." " If there was no 
securitie in the promise intimated, there would be no great 
certainty in a f urder confirmation of ye same ; for if after- 
wards there should be a purpose or desire to wrong them, 
though they had a scale as broad as ye house flore, it 
would not serve ye turne ; for ther would be means enew 
found to recall or reverse it." But before they could reach 
a conclusion for sending messengers with power to close 
the contract for the church with the Virginia Company, 
there was long agitation about many things with " messen- 
gers passing too and againe [between the church and com- 
pany] about them." It is probable that some of these 
messeno^ers were at the courts of Auo-ust 1 and 3. These 
meetings, coming so close together, and in the time of " the 
long vacation," indicate some important business as then 
being considered. However, somewhat before this time, 
Francis Blackwell, an elder of the Nonconformist church 
at Amsterdam, had come over with a party from his church 
" prepared for to goe to Virginia. And he, with sundrie 
godly citizens, being at a private meeting (I take it a fast) 
in London, being discovered, many of them were appre- 
hended, whereof Mr. BlackweU was one." He was arrested 
and imprisoned, but recanted, and received the solemn bless- 
ing of the archbishop. He and his fellow churchmen were 
about to sail for Virginia on the William and Thomas (the 
magazine ship), the Virginia Council having already written 



272 UNDER THE COMPANY 

their ofi&cial letters to tlie colony, when another magazine 
ship, the George, returned from Virginia with Captain 
George Yeardley, 20,000 pounds of tobacco, and letters 
from Deputy-Governor Argall which created a great commo- 
tion in the Virginia Council. They destroyed their former 
letters, and wrote others, both to Argall and to Lord Gov- 
ernor De la Warr, on September 1 and 2. They take Ar- 
gall to task, and write to De la Warr to ship him home 
to satisfy the adventurers by answering everything laid to 
his charge. These letters were sent at once by the William 
and Thomas (in which ship Elder Blackwell and his people 
went) ; they are signed by Thomas Smythe, Lionel Cran- 
field, John Davers, John Wolstenholme, and Robert John- 
son. The preservation of these letters is due to Ferrar, and 
to the fact that they were afterwards used in the contro- 
versy between the two political parties in the colony and 
company. 

On September 14, Mr. Sabin Staresmore wrote to Mr. 
Carver about his own arrest (he was then " in Wodestreete 
compter ") and about the arrest and " weakness " (in recant- 
ing) of Mr. Blackwell. 

The seven articles of the Ley den church were reviewed 
in " The ten counter demands [to the Nonconformist body] 
propounded by T. Drakes, Preacher of the word at H. and 
D. in the county of Essex," in which he asks " whether 
it were not the separatist's best course to return again [to 
England ? or the Church of England ?] ; or, if they will 
not take this course whether it were not good for them to 
remove to Virginia and make a plantation there, in the 
hope to convert the Infidels ; " which idea he was disposed 
to encourage. This pamphlet was answered in another by 
William Euring, who deemed it wiser " to enjoy peace with 
holiness in our native country than either to continue where 
now many of us as yet live, or to plant ourselves in Vir- 
ginia," etc. These pamphlets are numbers 485 and 495 of 
Dexter's list in his " Cong-rea'ationalism as seen in its Lit- 
erature." Mr. Wilberforce Eames, of the Lenox Library, 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 273 

New York, has identified " T. Drakes " with Rev. Thomas 
Draxe, B. D., of Christ's College, Cambridge, Vicar of 
Dover court-cum-Harwich in Essex, who was buried there 
January 29, 1618 (0. S.). 

September 19, at a Virginia court, " A bill of Adventure 
of £12 10s was allowed David Wif&n — 1 share ; " and at 
another court, on the 26th, Mr. David Waterhouse passed 
a bill of adventure of £50 to Mr. Bland, of four shares. 

At one of these courts an order was resolved on to seize 
whatever goods of Captain Argall's that should be sent to 
England ; which order, at the request of Lord Rich, " was 
so far forth dispensed with as that his Lordship might not 
withstanding take out his own part (intending so much as 
should belong to him by his right of partnership) upon 
promise to deliver the rest into the company's hands so far 
forth as should be in his power to perform it." Owing 
to this order, it came to pass that the goods of the partner- 
ship were returned from Virginia under other men's names, 
and the acts of their agents attributed to others. Sir Rob- 
ert Rich became Lord Rich in August, 1618, and Earl of 
Warwick in April, 1619. 

In August, 1618, Archy Armstrong (the court jester to 
James I. and Charles I.) was granted a patent or license, 
by which he had a monopoly of the making of tobacco- 
pipes, which was soon complained of, as " though it seem 
a small matter, yet it concerned a number of poor men ; '* 
but " Archy the Dizzard " was noted for having an eye 
and a tongue for other men's money. 

On August 10, 1618, "a petition which had been re- 
ferred to the Court of Common Council of London under 
the hands of many citizens for taking up of vagrant Boys 
and Girls that lie and beg in the streets of the city and for 
the transporting of them to Virginia to be employed in 
some industrious courses, was read and approved. There- 
upon it was ordered that Sir Thomas Bennett, Sir Thomas 
Lowe, Sir John Leman, Knights and aldermen ; Sir An- 
thony Benn, Knight, recorder, Mr. William Halliday and 



274 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Mr. Robert Johnson aldermen and sheriffs ; Mr. Richard 
Pyott, Mr. William Gore, Mr. John Gore, aldermen ; John 
Hodges, grocer, Samuel Goldsmith, mercer, Maurice Ab- 
bott, draper, John Williams, goldsmith, Wm. Towerson, 
Robert Bateman, shhiners, Thomas Johnson, merchant- 
taylor, Nicholas Leate, Wm. Canning, ironmongers, Rich- 
ard Fox, clothworker, and Samuel Armitage, girdler, or 
any three or more of the said Aldermen and five or more 
of the said Commoners should take into consideration the 
said petition, and treat as well with the Virginia Company 
for the transportation and employing of such vagrants ; 
the charge thereof ; and how the same should be most con- 
veniently levied, as for other matters which in their wisdoms 
and discretions they should think behovefuU for the order- 
ing of the same from time to time. And to report thereon 
at the next Common Council." ^ 

It was " agreed between the above committee and other 
committees appointed by the Virginia Company that the 
number of one hundred boys and girls from the age of 
eight years to the age of sixteen, born within the city and 
liberties thereof, having no means of living or maintenance 
should be taken up and transported to Virginia, there to 
be educated and brought up at the charge of the said Com- 
pany in such trades and professions as the said Company 
shall think fit, to every of which boys and girls the said 
Company is to allow 50 acres of land there, viz* to the 
Boys at their several ages of 24 years, and to the girls at 
their several ages of 21 years or marriages which shall first 
happen. The charge for transportation and appareling of 
which children would amount to the sum of £500, or there- 
abouts. It was enacted and agreed that every person liv- 
ing within the city or the liberties thereof and taxed or 
assessed towards the relief of the poor, should pay rateable 
for every penny that he, she, or they were rated or assessed 
to pay weekly for the relief of the poor at the last assess- 
ment or taxation vj*^. That is to say that every person so 

1 City Records, Journal 30, fol. 374 b. 



ENGLAND, N0VP:MBER, 1617 — OCTOBER, 1618 275 

dwelling and taxed as aforesaid should pay for this levy 
the Eight part of the yearly sum which he, she, or they, 
are taxed or assessed for the relief of the poor, or there- 
abouts ; the same to be gathered by the church wardens, 
collectors for the poor and one of the constables in each 
parish, the same to be paid over to the Alderman of that 
Ward before the 1'* of October [0. S.] next ensuing : to 
be by him paid and employed for the use aforesaid -'— Con- 
stable to distrain those refusing to pay the rate." 

In the account for the year 1618-1619 of Richard 
Downes, churchwarden of the parish of St. Christopher's, 
London (which parish is now entirely absorbed by the 
Bank of England), there is the following entry : — 

" Paid to the Lord Mayor more than I could collect for 
the sending of children to Virginia — 19s 3c?." 

On October 4 (N. S.), 1618, the Common Council " fur- 
ther enacted that indentures should be entered into between 
the Mayor, commonalty and citizens of London [on the one 
part] and the said Virginia Company [on the other part], 
for j)erformance of covenants by the said Company towards 
the said children : to be prepared by counsel." ^ 

The will of Mary Robinson, of Mark Lane, in the parish 
of St. Olave, Hart Street, London, dated February 13, 
1617 (that is, February 23, 1618, N. S.), was proved Octo- 
ber 6 (N. S.), 1618, in the prerogative court of Canter- 
bury. In it she " gave and bequeathed towardes the helpe 
of the poore people in Virginia, towardes the building of 
a church and reducein^e them to the knowledsre of God's 
word, the sum of tw^o hundred pounds, to be bestowed 
at the discreation of my cozen. Sir John Wolsten holme, 
Knight, with the advise and consent of four others of the 
chiefest of Virginia Company, within two yeares next after 
my decease." 

" During the year 1617 the treasury of the Company 
being exhausted, it pleased divers Lords, Knights, gentle- 
men and citizens, at their private charges (joining them- 

1 City Records, Journal 30, fol. 396. 



276 UNDER THE COMPANY 

selves into societies) to set up divers particular plantations," 
whereof the first of any moment was called Smythe's Hun- 
dred, for Sir Thomas Smythe, the treasurer of the com- 
pany and a leading member of the society; and the next, 
organized in 1618, Martin's Hundred, for Richard Mar- 
tin, Esquire, an attorney for the company and a leading 
member of the society. Sir John Wolstenholme was a 
member of both societies. In October, 1618, the society 
of Martin's Hundred sent the Gift of God (possibly the old 
North Virginia ship) to Virginia, with about two hundred 
and fifty settlers for their plantation. 

During Gondomar's absence, Julian Sanchez de Ulloa, 
and Fray Diego de Lafuente ("Padre Maestro"), Gondo- 
mar's confessor, looked after the interests of Spain in 
England. On October 12, 1618, Sanchez wrote to Philip 
III. : " The English are very hastily settling and fortifying 
Bermuda and Virginia, sending every year a number of 
men there, and this year more than 700 persons have 
already gone, taking with them samples of various fruits 
to plant, and a variety of fowls and cattle to raise there, 
and a supply of artillery, ammunition, and arms, and many 
tools to erect earthworks and fortifications." 



XXII 

VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 

CAPTAIN SAMUEL ARGALL, ADMIRAL AND DEPUTY-GOVERNOR 
TO APRIL 20, 1619. CAPTAIN NATHANIEL POWELL, ACTING 
DEPUTY-GOVERNOR, APRIL, 1619. ESTABLISHING THE COL- 
ONY. LORD DE LA WARR, THE LORD GOVERNOR, SET OUT 
TO MAKE GOOD THE PLANTATION, DIED EN ROUTE. 

The magazine ship, the George, left England in De- 
cember, 1617, was five months in her passage, and con- 
sequently the supplies arrived in bad condition. She 
brought about fifty emigrants, and found, according to a 
subsequent report made after the contention against Argall 
began : " About 400 of men, women and children of which 
about 200 were most as was able to set hand to husbandry, 
and but one plough was going in all the country which 
was the fruit of full twelve years labor," and a public 
expenditure amounting to about $1,500,000 present value, 
" besides the great expences of particular adventurers." 

The object of this report was to reflect upon Argall and 
others. On the other hand, although the commodities 
received in this ship were in bad condition, the profits of 
the voyage were considerable to the company. 

" A sister of Rev. Alexander Whitaker's came into the 
Colony [on this ship], who made enquiry after the goods 
of her deceased brother, but found that he left little of 
value behind him." 

Captain Powell, in the Hopewell, arrived in England 
from the Somers Islands in the fall of 1617 ; his case was 
brought before the company courts, and all his actions in 
that kind were disavowed by the company, who had much 
trouble about the ides with the lord admiral and the 
Spanish ambassador, and only secured them at a cost of 



278 UNDER THE COMPANY 

near £400 out of tlie joint stock. The Council wrote to 
Argall by this ship about these hides, giving him the par- 
ticulars. They also released him from attending to the 
magazine, etc. 

The ship arrived early in May (present style), 1618. 
On May 21, " there happened a most fearfull tempest, 
which powred down hailstones eight or nine inches around 
and did much spoil to corn and tobacco." 

May 28, Argall issued the following edicts : — 

" Against private trucking with savages, and pulling 
down pallisadoes. 

" Against teaching Indians to shoot with guns on pain 
of death to learner and teacher — and none to hunt deer or 
hogs without the governor's leave. 

" To go armed to church and to work — to keep watch. 

" Hofifs in Jamestown the 2""^ time forfeited to the col- 
ony. Hogs to be ringed at Bermuda. 

" No man to take hay to sweat tobacco, because it robs 
the poor beasts of their fodder, and sweating tobacco does 
it little good as found by experience. 

" Every man to sett 2 acres with corn (except tradesmen 
following their trades) — penalty forfeit of corn and to- 
bacco, and be a slave a year to ye Colony. 

" No man to shoot but in defence of himself against 
enemies untill a new supply of ammunition comes. 

" None to go aboard ye ship now at Jamestown without 
ye governor's leave. 

" No trade with ye perfideous Savages nor famiHarity 
lest they discover our weakness. 

" Every person to go to church Sundays and holidays — 
or lie neck and heels on the Corps du Guard ye night fol- 
lowing and be a slave ye week following — 2"*^, Offence a 
month — S"*^, A year and a day." 

At this time the colony was very " slenderly provided of 
munition." 

The George left Virginia about the 25th of June, loaded 
chiefly with sassafras and tobacco, — about 20,000 pounds 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 279 

of tobacco traded for at three shillings the pound the best, 
the rest at eighteenpence. The ship carried letters from 
Argall, Rolfe, and others, of which only abstracts remain. 
The governor wrote to the right honorable lords of the 
Council for Virginia : " Earnestly desires to give up his 
place. He is glad he is freed from ye magazine business. 
Lets them know they have affronted him by joining ye 
Cape Merchant with him in equal trust (sending letters 
subscribed with so few names, terming him but deputy- 
governor, etc.). No such thing as Idleness now. — You 
won't be overburdened with tobacco nor any other com- 
modity ; because you fix low prices for tobacco and high 
prices for ye goods — and if the people fall upon hemp 
or other comodity, it will be even as with tobacco — you 
have wholely discouraged them. They are forced to tend 
old ground for want of the tools, that we expected . . . 3/- 
per ft) for tobacco . . . cattle for, and had but 2/3c? . . . 
[torn]. Had disposed of the public Kine according to 
commission. Had provided sundry stuff for ye College, 
and paid sundry debts for ye Company. Being Admiral 
hieio how to dispose of such unlawfull purchase as the 
Sjoanish hides. Gave them warning that Opochankano 
and the Natives have given their country to Mr. Rolfe's 
child and that they will reserve it from all others 'till he 
comes of years," etc. 

It must be remembered that Mr. Rolfe was the secretary, 
and that the public letters were during his secretaryship 
written by him ; but of course he only wrote as the gov- 
ernor directed or dictated. 

Certain letters, said to have been written at the instiga- 
tion of Sir Robert Rich, had been sent from England by 
the George, which " suggested [to the planters in Vir- 
ginia] that the merchants (as they termed them) who then 
swayed the courts affected nothing but their own immoder- 
ate gain, though with the poor planters extream oppres- 
sion, as appeared by their magazine." In reply to these 
letters were now sent from Virginia to Rich, by the George, 



280 UNDER THE COMPANY 

authorizing him to go and complain to the king in behalf 
of the planters/ 

Sir Robert Rich and other noblemen in England desired 
to settle plantations in Virginia free from the control of 
" the merchants and the company monopolists," and in 
order to carry out their plan they were trying to arrange, 
by appeaUng to the king, so that the old planters might 
take grants of land from their party (Rich, Argall, and 
others) to the prejudice of the company. And this seems 
to have been the definite beginning of the company parties 
in England and in the colony. Thus the party contentions 
began, and Sir Robert Rich (afterwards Lord Rich and Earl 
of Warwick) and his party " pursued with great Eagerness 
the displacing of [the merchants] Sir Thomas Smith and 
Alderman Johnson from the government of the Company." 

The letters to which Captain John Smith refers in his 
history for his account of Argall's government were proba- 
bly to private friends in England. They do not appear 
to correspond with any of those to the Council of which 
we now have record. While this portion of his history 
is not so partisan as some other parts, it is but a jumble 
without regard to date. The " relation from Master John 
Rolfe, June 25, 1618," must have been sent by the George 
at this time. It begins : " Concerning the state of our 
new common-wealth, it is somewhat bettered, for we have 
sufficient to content ourselves, though not in such abun- 
dance as is vainly reported in England. Powhatan died 
this last Aprill, yet the Indians continue in peace. Itopatin 
his second brother succeeds him, and both hee and Ope- 
chankanough have confirmed our former league, etc. . . . 
Thus in peace every man followed his building and planting 
without any accidents worthy of note." The next event 
mentioned (the difference between Argall and Brewster) 
happened in October, 1618, after the date of the letter. 
However, the whole account is mixed. 

According to some evidences, Yeardley, having recently 

^ See, also, the public letter to the lords of the Virginia Council just quoted. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 281 

married in Virginia, went over to England at this time with 
his bride. Other accounts give the date of his going over 
as 1617. 

There was a great drought in the summer of 1618, 
which, with the hailstorm of the spring, cut short the crops 
of corn and tobacco. But as there were comparatively 
few unacclimated persons in Virginia, the sickness of the 
summer and early fall was not great. 

The small quantity of ammunition had caused a strict 
proclamation for restraint of shooting away powder ; " which 
forbidding to shoot at all in our peeces caused the losse of 
much of our corn then growing upon the ground ; the 
Indians perceiving our forbearance to shoot (as formerly) 
concluded thereupon that our peeces were, as they said, 
sicke and not to be used ; upon this not longe after they 
were boulde to presume to assault some of our people, 
whom they slew, therein breaking that league, which before 
was so fairly kept." This has reference to the killing, 
stripping, and spoiling of Killingbeck, with four others, 
while trading with the people of Chickahominias ; four 
more at the house of Mr. Farfax, a mile from Jamestown ; 
and one or two more. There were ten killed in all. Opo- 
chankanough pleaded ignorance, but sent *' a basket of earth 
in token of the gift and possession of that Town where the 
murderers dwelt to Captaine Argall, desiring him not to 
revenge the fault of a few, which for fear of revenge were 
fled to the woods, on their innocent neighbors." Argall 
was afterwards blamed in England for not revenging these 
murders. The real reason for his not doing so was a lack 
of powder. 

The lord governor, De la Warr, who sailed from Eng- 
land on the Neptune, about the middle of April (N. S.), 
to make good his colony in Virginia, " touched on his way 
thither at the Azores, where he was feasted and well used 
to seeming ; but the sickness and death of him and most 
of them that landed [about thirty] with him makes it sus- 
pected that they had ill measure." They left the Azores 



282 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Islands early in May, and he died on June (or July) 17 
following, over forty (or seventy) days after sailing. Cam- 
den, in his Annals, mentions the incident, but does not 
give the place of his death, nor state that " he was taken 
sick a few days after he left one of the Azores." Lorkin 
and Chamberlain state that he died on " his voyage to 
Virginia," and Salmon, that he died " at sea in his voyage," 
but neither gives the place of his death. Pory states that 
" he died in Canada ; " Baker, and his widow. Lady De la 
Warr, that he " died in Virginia." Purchas says : [The 
ship] '' departing from the Azores, they were long troubled 
with contrary winds, in which time many fell sick, thirtie 
died, one of which was that honourable Lord of noble 
memory. The rest refreshed themselves on that coast of 
New England, with fish, fowle, wood and water, and after 
sixteen weeks spent at sea, arrived in Virginia," about the 
5th of August, seven (or three) weeks after the lord gov- 
ernor's death. 

The Neptune left England with about 180 emigrants, 
and reached Virginia with about 150. The Treasurer, 
Captain Daniel Elfrith, which left England in May, arrived 
in Virginia soon after the Neptune, with Captain Henry 
Spelman and 30 others. These two ships were " set out 
at the charge of the Right Honorable the Lord Laware, 
his noble associates, and some other private adventurers." 
They are said to have " brought a most pestilent disease 
(called the Bloody flux) which infected almost all the whole 
colony. That disease, notwithstanding all our former af- 
flictions, was never known before amongst us." 

In 1623 there was a suit in progress before the high 
court of admiralty, regarding which the following frag- 
ment is all that I have found : — 

" 1623, The Earl of Warwick v. Edw. Brewster. Con- 
cerning the voyages of the ships Treasurer, & Neptune 
during 1617 & 1618. 

" The Treasurer instead of carrying provisions & fishing 
tackle took arms & ammunition. She belonged to Capt. 
Samuel Argal of Virginia. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1G19 283 

" The Neptune carried Lord de la Warre who had been 
appointed Governor & Captain General by the Counsel & 
Company of Virginia. He died 7 [0. S.] July [June?] 
1618. 

" The ships met on their voyage & eleven men were 
transposed from The Neptune to The Treasurer." 

Most unfortunately all the rest is torn away. The Vir- 
ginia records seem to have fared no better in the high 
court of admiralty than elsewhere. 

Owing to the death of Lord De la Warr it came to pass 
that there was some contention over his tenants and sup- 
plies, some time after they arrived on the Neptune, be- 
tween Captain Edward Brewster (said to have been a son 
of Elder WilHam Brewster, the Pilgrim Father), the old 
captain of his company in Virginia, and Governor Argall, 
resulting, on October 25, in the trial of Brewster by a court- 
martial, with Thomas Pasmore and John Lampkin as the 
chief witnesses agfainst him. He was sentenced to death 
under the 32d article of the martial law of the colony ; 
but, upon the petition of the ministers and others in the 
colony, the sentence was commuted to banishment, under 
oath not to return. He sailed from Virginia " near the 
beofinninof of November." 

The Neptune had brought the news " to the colony that 
great multitudes [including the Pilgrims ?] were preparing 
in England to be sent, and relied much upon that victual 
they should finde here." Whereupon Governor Argall 
called a council in Virginia, and wrote to the Council in 
England, at the return of the ship, " telling them the estate 
of the colonic," the short crop of 1618, owing to the 
drought, etc., " and what a great miserie would insue, if 
they sent not provision as well as people." 

I have only abstracts from " the plantation letters " dur- 
ing Argall's administration. He was accused of sending 
letters at this time into England " by which he so dispraised 
the country as to appear less fertile than the most barren 
arable land to be found ordinarily in the realm of England. 



284 UNDER THE COMPANY 

An assured way of discontent to all adventurers and plant- 
ers from further proceeding. But this engine was broken 
by a commission sent unto Virginia [by Yeardley], from 
whence was returned, by examination upon oath, that the 
soil was most fertile and that slander of it most untrue." 
On the other hand, according to Smith's history, the letter 
stated that " what they did suffer for was want of skilful 
husbandmen, and meanes to set their Ploughs on worke, 
having as good ground as any man can desire, and about 
fortie Bulls and oxen ; but they wanted men to bring them 
to labour and Irons for the Ploughs, and harness for the 
cattle." 

A leading motive of Smith's history from first to last 
was to show that " the cause of the defailement was only in 
the managing the business." Argall's administration is a 
turning-point in this history. Previously " the defailement" 
had been with the management under Sir Thomas Smythe. 
Smith now begins to make the issue with the management 
under the last administrations of the London Company, 
and to favor " the opposition party." 

The whole crop of tobacco for the year 1618, owing to 
the causes already stated, is said to have amounted to only 
20,000 pounds. 

Not long after the Neptune sailed for England, Governor 
Argall fitted up the Treasurer and sent her, according 
to his account, under Captain Daniel EKrith to the West- 
ern Islands (the Azores) for salt and goats to supply the 
present wants of the colony ; and as she was " a very weak 
ship Argall delivered the Master of ye ship a commission 
which he had receaved 2 yeares before [in 1616 ?] of my 
Lord of Warwick's procurement from ye Duke of Savoy," 
thereby " the better to procure the friendship of any French 
man-of-war he might meet, as a nation in league with the 
Duke of Savoy." The owners of the ship disavowed send- 
ing her to the West Indies, as well as her acts after leaving 
Virginia. On the other side it was said " the Treasurer 
was set forth by the Earl of Warwick and sent to Virginia 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 285 

and an old commission of hostility from the Duke of Savoy 
against the Spaniards procured by some means and put into 
the hands of Captain Argall, the said Treasurer, being 
manned with the ablest men in the colony, and new vic- 
tualed from thence, was set out on a roving voyage on the 
Spanish dominions in the West Indies." And thus from 
the beginning this voyage furnished cause for concealment 
and contradiction. 

From December, 1606, to May, 1618, there were sent 
from England to Virginia, by the first company (1606- 
1609), 300, and by the Virginia Company of London 
(1609-1618), li^OO; total, 1800. Of these about 100 had 
returned to England ; about 1100 had died e7i route or in 
Virginia, and 600 were living in Virginia, according to the 
census, on December 28, 1618. 

The magazine ship, called the William and Thomas, which 
left England in September, 1618, with Elder Blackwell and 
his people, arrived in Virginia either in January or March, 
1619 ; there were, according to the different accounts, from 
180 to 200 sent by the ship, and from 30 to 130 died en 
route, including " Mr. Blackwell and Mr. Maggner ye Cap- 
tain." This ship brought the letters from the company to 
Lord Governor De la Warr and to Deputy-Governor Argall, 
in which Argall is severely taken to task for his acts in Vir- 
ginia, for his letter sent by the George in June, 1618, etc. 
As the lord governor was dead, it is probable that both 
letters came to Argall's own hands. Copies of these letters 
were preserved in England, and they have been frequently 
printed. In justice to Argall, it should be noted that of 
the five signers all became satisfied after hearing his expla- 
nation, except Sir John Danvers. 

The Gift of God, sent forth at the charge of the Society 
of Martin's Hundred, with about 250 people, arrived about 
the same time as the William and Thomas. On Ausfust 
10, 1889, the late Rev. Philip Slaughter, D. D., histori- 
ographer of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, wrote to me 
as follows : " There are two old pieces of communion Plate, 



286 UNDER THE COMPANY 

which may be the oldest extant in Virginia. [He failed to 
state where they were, and I failed to ask him before his 
death.] 

" 1. A large cup inscribed The communion Cu'p'p for 
St Mary's church in Smith's Hundred in Virginia. 

" 2. Another piece inscribed The Gift of j) <^ j^ to 

M^ pr 

The first was for the church founded by Mrs. Mary Rob- 
inson in Smythe's Hundred. It was sent to Virginia prior 
to July, 1619, and probably at this time by the Gift of 
God.' The second was probably "The Gift of Dust & 
Ashes to Martin's Hundred Parish ; " but, having only ini- 
tials, there must be some doubt about it. This, also, may 
have come over at the same time. I believe that both 
pieces certainly reached Virginia in 1619. Sir John Wol- 
stenholme was interested in both these hundreds. 

Mrs. Mary Robinson was buried in October, 1618. Some 
time thereafter " a person unknown gave for the church 
founded by her a Communion Cup with a cover, and a 
Plate for the bread of Silver guilt, a silke damaske carpet, 
a linen damaske Tablecloth, and other ornaments, all val- 
ued at £20." ' 

The records of the Society for Smythe's (afterwards 
Southampton) Hundred are missing, and we know little of 
its history ; but the settlement was the first of the land in 
Virginia. The organization was a strong one, owning 
ships, etc. And Captain (afterwards Sir) George Yeardley 
was for many years captain or commander of the hundred. 

Captain Edward Stalling came from New England to Vir- 
ginia in February or March, 1619, " where he was kindly 

1 After the death of Governor & two little chalices in a black lea- 

Yeardley, in whose charge they were, ther cover. 

his widow delivered up to the Court "2. One yellow & blue cheiny Da- 

at James City on February 19, 1628, maske Carpett with a Silke fringe, 

the following : " Given by Mrs. Mary " 3. One White damaske Comunion 

Robinson for the use of Southampton Cloath. 

hundred church — " 4. One Surplisse." 

" 1. One Comunion Silver guilt Cupp 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 287 

received by Argall who was the readier to help him (with 
somethings needed), in regard of the good Argall wished to 
the business wherein he was imployed." Since his voyage 
in 1610, Argall had been an advocate of the settlement of 
New Enorland. 

o 

On April 7, 1619, the governor issued the following pro- 
clamation : — 

" To all to whom these presents shall come, I Samuel Ar- 
gall, Esq., and principal Governor of Virginia, do by these 
presents testify, and upon my certain Knowledge hereby do 
make manifest the bounds and limits of Jamestown how far 
it doth extend every way — that is to say the whole island, 
with part of the main land lying on the East side of Ar- 
gall toion, and adjoining upon the said Island, also the 
neck of land on the north part, and so to the further part 
of Archer^ s Hope ; also Hog Island ; and from thence to 
the four mile Tree on the south, usually called by the name 
of Tappahannocky in all which several places of ground I 
hereby give, leave and license for the inhabitants of James- 
toian to plant as members of the corporation and parish 
of the same. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my 
hand the 28''' day of March [0. S.] in the year of our Lord 
1619, and on the 12'^ year of the plantation." 

This was one of the means resorted to by the Warwick- 
Argall associates " to over-strengthen their party " after- 
wards complained of in the " Magna Charta." 

The Council of the Virginia Company in England, 
against the protest of the fourth Lord Rich, prepared divers 
commissions for examining into the acts of, and proceeding 
against. Captain Argall, which were sent to Virginia by Sir 
George Yeardley to be executed by him. " So Lord Rich 
his friends and followers took a course to despatch a pin- 
nace, called the Ellinor, from Plymouth to fetch away Cap- 
tain Argall and his goods before the arrival of the said Sir 
George Yeardley and his commissions." This pinnace ar- 
rived in Virginia on April 16, and Argall sailed away in 
her about the 20tli, leaving Captain Nathaniel Powell as 
deputy-governor. 



288 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Captain John Martin said that being somewhat cut off 
from the main, necessity had made the savages of the 
eastern shore more industrious than any other Indians in 
our bay. He said that the trade with these Indians was 
discovered not long before Sir George Yeardley came in 
" by my Aunchient [ensign] Thomas Savage and servants, 
when they saw at one time 40 of their great canowes 
laden with their commodities, and obtained a sufficient 
quantity of corn to relieve the colonists," who were then 
in want, owing to the failure of the crop the previous year 
on the mainland. 

April 22, 1619, the Sampson, Captain John Ward, arrived 
with 50 emigrants, including Rev. Thomas Bargrave, a 
nephew of Captain John Bargrave (to whom the pinnace 
belonged), and of Dr. Bargrave, the dean of Canterbury. 
They made a settlement above Martin's Brandon, on what 
is still known as Ward's Creek. Captain John Bargrave 
afterwards claimed that this was the first private colony, 
or plantation, settled in Virginia ; but this claim was denied 
by others. 

[April ?] 27, 1619, Mr. Christopher Lawne's ship [Mas- 
ter Evans] arrived with 100 emigrants, sent out by Richard 
Wiseman, Nathaniel Basse, and others, to make a settlement 
at Warraskoyack. They settled on, or near, what is still 
known as Lawne's Creek. As this ship left England in 
March, it probably arrived in May, not April. 

Much evidence remains relative to Argall's administra- 
tion, but most of it was written after party feeling had be- 
come very bitter, and so we cannot rely upon it. It was 
then well known, however, that Virginia tobacco would 
pay enormous profits if suitable labor for working the crop 
in the sickly summer season could be procured. It was 
also known that the Spaniards had long used negro labor 
with success in their tobacco crops in the West Indies; 
that the negroes withstood the heat and climate of summer 
much better than Europeans, and so it may weU be that 
Lord Rich and his associates, as it was afterwards charged 



VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1618 — APRIL, 1619 289 

ao^ainst them, were planning to secure large bounds of lands 
in Virginia, as well as to procure laborers from Guinea, and 
more skilled negro labor from the Spanish West Indies. 
They opposed the Smythe administration because it was not 
friendly to their plan, and aided in defeating it; but the 
Sandys party proved to be equally opposed to it ; "and so 
the whole scheme, whatever it was, could not be carried out, 
and may not be fully known. 

The company parties (" the lords," " the merchants," 
and " the auditors ") which were now forming were con- 
fined strictly to the company and colony; while the na- 
tional parties (patriot and court) which had been shaping 
the political destiny of the Virginia colony from the first 
were not. It wiU be seen, however, that these divisions in 
the company were instrumental in placing the Virginia 
courts under the control of the patriot party, and it was 
this fact which finally caused the court party to attempt 
the annulling of the popular Virginia charters. 



\ 
\ 



XXIII 

ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 
TEE END OF SIR THOMAS SMYTHE'S ADMINISTRATION 

The news of Lord De la Warr's death reached London 
on October 15, 1618. It was probably brought by some 
ship returning from fishing on our New England coast, or 
by some private trading ship from Virginia. There is no 
record of one of the company vessels reaching England 
about this time. This news discouraged many; but the 
managers went on with their work. 

October 24, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton of De la 
Warr's death, and telling that " the city is now shipping 
thither an hundred young boys and girls that lay starving 
in the streets ; which is one of the best deeds that could be 
done with so little charge, not rising to above .£500." 

November 4, John Pory wrote from London to Carleton : 
" Capt. Yeardley chosen governor of Virginia in Lord De la 
Warr's place (who died in Canada) ; departs immediately 
thither with two ships and about 300 men and boys [and 
girls?]. The greatest difficulties of that plantation over- 
come." " They begin now to enjoy both commodity and 
wealth." Yeardley had been " nominated " for governor 
at a previous Virginia court, probably that of October 31. 
At a magazine court of the company on Monday, Novem- 
ber 5, " it was ordered that the Magazin should continue 
during the term formerly prefixed, and that certain abuses 
now complained of should be reformed, and that for pre- 
venting of all Impositions save the allowance of 25 in the 
hundred profit, the governor shall have an invoice as weU 
as the Cape Merchant, that if any abuse in the sale of the 
goods be offered, we, upon intelligence and due examina- 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 291 

tion thereof, shall see it corrected. And for the encourage- 
ment of particular hundreds, as Smythe's hundred, Martin's 
hundred, Lawne's hundred, and the like, it is agreed that 
what comodities are reaped upon any of these general 
colonies, it shalbe lawf uU for them to return the same to 
their own adventurers. Provided that the same comodity 
be of their own growing, without trading with any other, in 
one entire lump and not dispersed, and that at the deter- 
mination of the joint stock, the goods then remaining in 
the Magazin shalbe bought by the said particular Colonies 
before any other goods which shall be sent by private men. 
And it was moreover ordered that if the Lady La Warre, 
the Lady Dale, Captain John Bargrave and the rest, would 
unite themselves into a settled Colony they might be capa- 
ble of the same priviledges that are graunted to any of the 
foresaid hundreds." 

Of course I cannot go into the details in this book, but 
it must be borne in mind that the treaty with Spain about 
the match between Prince Charles and the Infanta was 
proceeding, and that Sir Walter Ralegh's trial was under 
way at this time, which events had a direct bearing on the 
colonial movement. It may be also well to remember that 
" the Synod of Dort," which is said to have " made heU 
tremble," was in session. 

On Wednesday, November 7, Sir Walter Ralegh was 
brought from the Tower to the King's Bench bar, where 
he gave reasons why the sentence pronounced against him 
at Winchester should not be put in execution. Notwith- 
standing which the judges willed him to prepare himself, 
and delivered him to the sheriffs of London, who conveyed 
him to the gatehouse, and the next morning " he was be- 
headed, in the old Palace at Westminster, 'twixt the Par- 
liament House and the church," after a speech of more 
than half an hour made on the scaffold. 

In October, 1618, Owen Evans, messenger of the cham- 
ber, while in Somersetshire pretended to have a commission 
to press maidens to be sent to the Bermudas and Virginia, 



292 UNDER THE COMPANY 

and raised money thereby. His proceedings bred such 
terror to the poor maidens that forty fled from one parish. 
On October 29, Sir Edward Hext, J. P., of Somersetshire, 
had him arrested, and, on November 23, sent him to London 
for trial, he being" a servant of the king. 

On November 20, one Robinson, sometime a clerk in an 
office, was arraigned at the King's Bench and condemned 
for counterfeiting the great seal. " Another course of his 
was by virtue of this counterfeited commission to take up 
rich Yeomen's daughters to serve his majesty for breeders 
in Virginia, or drive them to compound." He was hanged, 
drawn, and quartered near Charing Cross on November 23. 

A grant of the sole trade in Guinea and Binney to the 
Governor and Company of Adventurers of London trad- 
ing to Africa was under way prior to October, 1618 (at 
which time the George had returned from Virginia) ; it was 
stayed for a time, but finally granted on November 26, 
1618, to Robert Lord Rich, Sir Robert Mansell, Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges, Sir Warwick Heale, and others. The chief 
object stated in the grant is " a trade for gold ; " it con- 
tains no mention of negroes, slaves, etc., or of any privi- 
leges concerning them. They may, however, have intended 
(as charged against them) to trade in slaves, as this company 
contained men who were determined to contest the trade 
of Spain in the East and West Indies, — and the Guinea 
and Binney region was claimed by Portugal, which was then 
a part of the king of Spain's dominions. On the same day, 
November 26, a preparative court of the Virginia Company 
met, and on the 28th the Michaehnas term of the quarter 
court sat, at which Sir George Yeardley was " solemnly 
chosen " to be governor and captain-general of Virginia, 
to serve " onely for three years in certain and afterwards 
during the Company's pleasure. And twenty great shares 
were given him for transport of 20 persons, being 20 
shares." 

At this very important quarter court of November 28, 
1618, Sir Thomas Smythe was the treasurer, with Sir Edwin 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 293 

Sandys as his assistant, and Robert Johnson, deputy. 
Henry Fotherby was the secretary, and Thomas Newton 
was the beadle. 

"I. The great charter of privileges, orders and Lawes, 
which had been previous drafted, and considered, was rati- 
fied, signed and directed to the Governor and the Council 
of Estate in Virginia." 

" II. The commission for establishing the Council of Es- 
tate and the general Assembly (two Burgesses out of every 
Plantation), wherein their duties were described to the life," 
was similar to " An Ordinance and Constitution " given 
Wyatt in 1621, and I think that similar documents to both 
of the above had been previously given Lord De la Warr. 

" III. Sundry Instructions " were also drawn up for the 
governor, council and colony, some of them at this court ; 
but the whole of them were not completed, signed, and 
sealed, until the court of December 12, 1618. 

These three very important documents directed to the 
colony will be further treated of in the Virginia chapters. 

The date of the issuing of our first executed Magna 

Charta, November 28, 1618, is a most important one in our 

earliest history ; and it was not then allowed to pass by 

without " a sig-n in the heavens." On that niofht " a blaz- 
es o 

ing star " appeared on high, and the superstitious world 
looked on with bated breath, beheving that — 

" Eight things there be a comet brings, 
When it on high doth horrid range : 
Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings, 
War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful change." 

On December 4, James I., while at New Market, knighted 
the new governor of Virginia, in recognition of his past 
services in the colony, and, as Philip Mainwaring wrote to 
the Earl of Arundell, " had a long discourse with him about 
Virginia in which he proved very understanding. He told 
the King that the people of that country do believe in the 
resurrection of the body ; and that when the body dies, 
the soul goes into certain fair pleasant fields [happy hunt- 



294 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ing grounds ?], there to solace itself until the end of the 
world, and then the soul is to return to the body again, 
and they shall live both together happily and perpetually. 
Hereupon the King inferred that the gospel must have been 
heretofore known in that country, though it be lost, and 
this fragment only remains." 

The Virginia Company with the contributions from the 
archbishops were now meaning to erect a college in Vir- 
ginia, and the Rev. Thomas Lorkin was considering an offer 
to become a teacher therein. 

December 8, 1618, John Pory wrote from London to Sir 
Dudley Carleton at the Hague. " No longer ago than 
yesterday the Council of Virginia (my Lord of Southamp- 
ton, my Lord Rich, my Lord Sheffield, and my Lord Paget 
being present), did at the instance of Sir George Yeardley, 
the new elected Governor, choose me for their Secretary 
in Virginia. This Sir George Yeardley hath married my 
cousin German, and infinitely desires my company. So 
having done this office for me without my seeking, 1 en- 
treated him he would also demand what allowance they 
would give me for my setting forth and what maintenance 
at my coming thither. At this demand he finds them as 
dry as Pumystones, which is the cause that I mean not 
to adventure my carcase in so dangerous a business for 
nothing. The Governor of himself hath proffered to make 
my means worth £200 a year at least, which I purpose to 
accept so he will allow me £50 to set me forth, and to-mor- 
row night I am to receive my last answer. But (so my 
sufficiency were answerable) how happy should I be to be 
called into your Lordship's domestical service, in case I do 
not embrace this. "... On the same day Chamberlain, 
also, wrote to Carleton telling him of the recent marriage 
of Sir Thomas Smythe's son to the Lady Isabella Rich, 
without his father's consent or knowledge, and " that two 
or three ships were ready for Virginia and Captain Yardley 
goes as governor and to grace him the more the King 
knighted him this last week at New Market, which hath 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 295 

set him up so high that he flaunts it up and down the 
streets in extraordinarie braverie, with fowreteen or fifteen 
fay re liveries after him." 

Yeardley had been a soldier in the Low Country wars. 
Pory says, " At his first coming to Virginia, besides a great 
deal of worth in his person, brought onely his sword with 
him ; but while in London, together with his lady out of 
his mere getting in Virginia, he was able to disburse very 
near three thousand pounds to furnish liimseK for his 
return voyage." 

Pory accepted the place of " Secretary of Estate," and 
says that he was " the first that ever was chosen and ap- 
pointed by commission from the Counsell and Company in 
England, under their hands and common seal." 

At the Virginia court, December 12, Lord Doncaster 
(James Hay) and John Pountis were admitted, and Poun- 
tis, who was preparing to go in his ship to Virginia, was 
given three shares. At the next court (December 19) the 
Earl of Bedford assigned a bill of adventure of .£50 (four 
shares) to Sir Edward Horwood. 

December 24, Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Lionel Cranfield, 
Sir Dudley Digges, and others, were appointed the English 
commissioners to treat with the Hollanders for the peace- 
able ordering and establishing of the trade to the East 
Indies. They were to induce them to "join their stocks 
into one bank and treat out that trade and traffic to- 
gether." Among the points for the commissioners to make 
was, " the good done by the English against the Spaniards 
in America, without maintaining an open war against 
them." 

" Dec. 28*^ — The Virginia Council wrote Gov"" Yeard- 
ley that he was to return £500 for the 50 youths then sent 
by his Majesty's command." I suppose these to be the 
Lottidon boys already mentioned, or they may have been 
some of the followers of his court already sent by the 
king's command. 

January 2, 1619, at a Virginia court, " Mr Edward 



296 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Lukin renouncing his prizes in ye Lottery is to have a bill 
of adventure for £25 — 2 shares." 

On January 8, John Pountis, citizen and clothworker, 
of London, who owned about £121, " stock in Virginia 
fishing^ being in haste about his journey for Virginia," 
made his last will.^ 

January 22, 1619, a fire occurred at Whitehall, which 
destroyed all of the records and minutes of the Privy 
Council, from January, 1602, to May, 1613, inclusive. As 
this Council had a special supervision over Virginia matters 
from the beginning of the colony, many records of great 
value to us must have been destroyed by this fire. 

January 23, " the King wrote from Newmarket to Sir 
Thomas Smythe, stating that the court had lately been 
troubled with divers idle young people, who, though twice 
punished, still continued to follow the court wherever it 
might happen to go, having no employment, and his 
Majesty, having no other course to clear the Court from 
them, had thought fit to send them to him, that at the 
next opportunity they might be sent to Virginia, and set 
to work there." 

January 28, Sir Thomas Smythe wrote to the lord mayor. 
Sir Sebastian Harvey, sending to him the king's letter, and 
stating that " some of these persons had already been 
brought, by the King's command^ from Newmarket to Lon- 
don, and others were coming. The Company of Virginia 
had no ship ready to sail, and no means to employ them 
or place to detain them in, and he requested the Lord 
Mayor to authorize their detention and employment in 
Bridewell, until the next ship should depart for Virginia." 

Although the ships had been ready for more than a 
month, Yeardley did not sail until the first part of Janu- 
ary; he spent "much time upon our English coast," and 
sailed therefrom on January 29. The comet remained 
visible in the heavens until December 26, and it may be 

^ N. E. Hist, and Genealogical Register, 1895, p. 510. 
2 See December 28, 1618, p. 295. 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 297 

that it was thought best not to sail until after that baneful 
influence had passed away. The Sandys party afterwards 
asserted that Lord Rich was the baneful influence. 

February 9, Sir Thomas Smythe's house, at Deptford, 
was burnt to the ground, and doubtless valuable Virginia 
records went with it. 

February 13, Hilary term, quarter court, sat, at which 
"the Indenture [Patent] to Sir W. Throckmorton, Sir 
George Yardley, Richard Berkeley, George Thorpe and 
John Smyth of Nibley, for plantation [Berkeley hundred] 
in Virginia," was ratified. 

February 28, joint letter from Sir W. Throckmorton, 
Richard Berkeley, George Thorpe, and John Smith, to Sir 
George Yeardley, governor of Virginia, offering him a fifth 
share m the ship ^ they were then sending, at that moment 
" kept wind-bound in Ireland." "Since your departure . . . 
we have procured our patent for plantation in Virginia (a 
copy whereof we herewith send unto you written by the 
Virginian hoy ^ of me, George Thorpe)." 

There were evidently many " private men " now inter- 
ested in the plantation. Before the death of Lord De la 
Warr was known in England, Lord Zouch and others pro- 
posed to send Captain Andrews, in the Silver Faulcon, to 
Virginia ; " first, to leave certain people in the country 
upon the charge of the joint stock there to plant Tabaco 
and corn for their use and to exchangee commodities with 
the English Colonic. Secondly, to discover and trade with 
the savages for furs, etc. Thirdly to fish upon the coast 
of Canada [New England] and to carry the said fish, being 
salted, into Virginia to change it for commodities with the 
people in the countrie there." 

The report of Lord De la Warr's death discouraged some 
who had promised to adventure money, and deterred others 
who had offered to go in person in this "projecte" (which 
infringed the rights of the Virginia Company under their 
charters) ; but Captain Andrews, and Jacob Braems, a mer- 

^ What ship ? ■^ Was this the first educated Virginia Indian ? 



298 UNDER THE COMPANY 

chant of Sandwich and Dover, were willing to engage to 
supply all deficiencies if Lord Zouch, ^' Lord Warden of 
the cinque Portes etc," would " set such a course as might 
save them from ruinating their estates." They wanted 
protection from " ye Virginian Monopolists." They did 
not wish the company to exclude them from trade in 
" Tabaco," sassafras, or anything else. Now that the col- 
ony was planted, the company wished to get back some of 
the money expended thereon, while others (especially the 
lords) were anxious to reap the fruits of their labor (of the 
merchants). Andrews and Braems wrote to Lord Zouch : 
" Now if by your Lordship's means (upon whose goodnes 
and protection our hopes under God wholy dej)end) we 
may upon faire conditions enjoy the previledge of free 
Trade and Plantation. Whereof at your Honnors pleasure 
ye whole Ports may herafter make to your Lordship and 
themselves a continuall benefit. We nothinge doubt but 
to geve your Honor so good an account of our present 
Endevours and Industrie as shall encourage your Lordship 
to approve of our service, and to set forward our hopefull 
and future adventures and undertaking." 

The exact result of this project does not appear ; but on 
February 25, 1619, Edward Lord Zouch and " cunstable 
of the castle of Dover, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 
tow ancient townes and their members and Admiral of the 
same," issued his warrant " To all to whom these presents 
shall come," giving notice and testifying, " that John 
Fenner gent, who I have made Captain of my pinnace the 
Silver Falcon and Henry Bacon master of the same are by 
God's assistance to pass into Virginia to make trade there 
both with ower countrymen there planted, and with the 
savages of those parts for the better imployment of the 
said Pinace as also to sett ower Marine men on work and 
to draw trade unto the Ports where the people there doe 
want imployment. These therefore are," etc. " to permit 
the said pinnace, captain, master, and loading, to follow 
their affairs, pass, etc." 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 299 

I do not know that this ship went to Virginia, but I 
think it did ; the voyage was for private trading, and there 
was not apt to be any further record about it unless it " got 
into court." The following vessels, however, left England 
about this time : " the Ellinor, a pinace," sent by Lord 
Rich for Argall ; " the Sampson that Capt. Ward went in 
with 50 ; " and " the Edwin, George Bargrave Capt, with 
50," in February ; " Mr. Lawn's ship with his plantacon 
nere upon, 100 ; " and " Jno, Powntis his ship, with 50," 
late in March. There is reason to think that other ships 
besides those mentioned sailed during this winter and spring. 

February 23, 1619, Sir Thomas Lake was dismissed from 
the secretaryship, and on the 26th Sir George Calvert was 
appointed in his place. 

March 8. East India court. " Leave to the Va. Com- 
pany to sell by the candle 1000 weight of tobacco in 
rolls." 

March 14. Virginia court. " Mr Joseph Man assigned 
3 shares to Sir Nathaniel Rich." 

March 15. East India court. " Virginia wheat called 
maize, much commended for an excellent strong meat, and 
hearty for men at sea, and more wholesome than beef; 
the Virginia company to be desired to procure some for 
trial by the next shipping." 

March 22. East India court. " Alderman Johnson 
desirins: to borrow four minions for the use of the Vir- 
ginia Company, acknowledged they owe for four demi- 
culverins which have been long due. If they may have 
these both Mr Governor (Sir Thomas Smythe) and himself 
wiU use the best means to procure satisfaction for the old 
from the Virginia Company — and undertake for the satis- 
fying of these four. Ordered that Mr. Salmon deliver 
them four minions, if this company have any to spare." 

The customs free period mentioned in the letters patent 
to the Virginia Company had now expired. 

March 25, Sir Thomas Dale wrote from Jacatra to Sir 
Thomas Smythe, stating, among other things, " that he 



300 UNDER THE COMPANY 

should be glad to hear how Virginia prospers and his 
own business goes forward there." He expected to return 
to Virginia after his return from the East Indies ; he 
owned lands in Virginia, which passed at his death to his 
widow, Lady Dale. 

March 27. Virginia court. " Mr John Taverner al- 
lowed one personal share of 100 acres. Sir Wm. Smith 
passed 2 shares to Mr Nicholas Ferrar." 

March 12, or 14, Queen Anne died. On the 29th, 
James I. was taken ill, and continued so until April 21, 
when the bishop of London preached at Paul's Cross, be- 
fore a great audience, a thanksgiving sermon for his re- 
covery. 

April 16. East India court. " Capt. Daniel Tucker and 
Capt Samuel Argall who have been employed to the Somers 
Islands and Virginia were both recommended to be con- 
sidered of (for employment by this company) when conve- 
nient time shall be." On the same day the Ellinor arrived 
in Virginia, to bring Argall away. " Padre Maestro," 
Gondomar's father confessor, knew of the acts of the 
Treasurer in taking a Spanish ship in the West Indies prior 
to May, 1619, and it is quite probable that Tucker's and 
Argall's friends now wished to find them employment in 
the East Indies for the purpose of getting them out of the 
way for a time. 

April 13, Richard Berkeley (and 20th, Sir W. Throck- 
morton) wrote to John Smith recommending William Ches- 
ter (a kinsman of Berkeley's) for their chief or commander 
of their men in Virginia. 

In the spring of 1619, the English church at Leyden 
were at last ready to commission Brewster and Cushman 
to go to England, close the agreement with the Virginia 
Company, and obtain a patent for them in Virginia ; but 
when they arrived they found the company in the midst of 
great political excitement incidental to the approaching 
annual election of officers at their Easter term quarter 
court. And, therefore, their application was deferred until 
after the election. 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 301 

Public questions (as free trade, protection, etc.), which 
naturally divide the mind of the public, together with sev- 
eral questions relative to the Virginia business proper, had 
divided the company into parties, and party spirit was now 
growing warm. 

At the preparative court held on Monday, May 6, the 
following " committee was appointed for the setting down 
the several! offices belonging to the Virginia Company," 
to be chosen at the next quarter court, namely, " Sir 
Edwin Sandys, Sir Ed. Harwood, Sir John Wolstenholme, 
Sir Nathaniel Rich and M' Alderman Johnson." They 
met the next day, indicated the said officers, and passed the 
following resolution describing their particular duties, called 
" The standing order concerning the duty of each particu- 
lar officer." 

" The severall officers, whose offices we conceave fit to be 
particularized, are these. The Treasurer — The Deputie — 
The Counsell — The Committees — The Auditors — the 
Secretary — The Booke Keeper for accompts — The Hus- 
band and the Bedle. There is, also, a Cashier who is 
immediately the Treasurers servant, and by him chosen, 
howsoever, as yet the Company hath given him a yearly 
salary of £40. 

"27ie Treasurer in regard of his office we conceave to 
be of a double capacitie — 1^* as Governour — 2"*^ as Trea- 
surer — His duty — to appoint ordinary courts and to as- 
semble extraordinary as occasion shall serve — In all such 
Assembly es himself shall hold the place of President and 
Moderator. 

" He shall have only a casting voyce — 

" That no man may be " All proposition made by 

present when anything is any member of ye Com- 
treated of which concernes P^^ny, he shall either put 
himself e. to ye question, or if their 

be any opposition, then shall he understand the mind of 
ye Court by demanding of them whether it shalbe put to 
the question or no ; and as ye greater part shalbe so shall 



302 UNDER THE COMPANY 

he proceed. And if he refuse, to loose his office and be 
made uncapable for ever after — and then ye Deputy to 
do it, if he refuse to loose his place, and any of ye Counsell 
to do it — 

" To assemble ye Counsell upon all weightie occasions 
— To do his best that fit men be chosen ; that they take 
their oath ; that by their advise ye Lords of ye Privy Coun- 
sell may be acquainted with businesses of greatest import- 
ance, such especially as concerns ye state in generall. 

" To have care that fit committees according to ye con- 
tents of these [their ?] Patents be chosen and sworn j and 
keep their Courts as occasion requires. That ye Treasurer 
shall ask an accompt to be rendred in open Court by all 
Committees which shalbe upon particular occasions designed. 
That he may if he will be present at ye meeting of any 
committee, provided that it concern not himself. 

" He shall suffer no Patent to pass which hath not been 
first considered of and examined by a particular select 
committee and ye same reported to ye court under their 
hand. As Treasurer he is to stand charged with ye pub- 
lick Treasure of ye company and to be carefull to call in 
all moneyes and debts which are due payable by or due 
to ye Company. Not to issue it but by warrant such as 
ye Court shall allow of. To yeald up a true and perfect 
accompt (of course) at their and his year's end. Which 
accompt shalbe presented to ye auditors to be by them 
examined 14: days before ; and upon all occasions being re- 
quired by ye auditors to shew ye state of ye Cash. That 
is to say what moneys have been received, paid and ren- 
dered. That he shalbe particularly sworne to yeald a just 
and true accompt. 

" In regard ye Lotteryes are determined and so ye Cash 
like to be little. The reward of ye Cashier to be referred 
to ye last Quarter Court which upon ye passing of ye 
Treasurer's accompt shall give order of a reward convenient 
to ye pains, which it shall appear ye said Cashier hath taken 
for that year. 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 303 

" It was conceaved in generall that ye Governor and 
Deputie do not continue in his place and office for above 
3 years : and that for these reasons — 

" 1. That ye burthen thereof may not always rest upon 
one. 

" 2. For that the change may be made without touch or 
imputation to any that hold those places. 

" 3. To avoid too much dependance. 

*^ 4. To breed up more men fit for ye place. 

" The Deputy. In ye Treasurer's absence to perform 
his office for aU matters of Court and Counsell which do 
concern ye Treasurer as Governor. And with his presence 
to assist him. That ye Deputy shall oversee ye Secretary 
and cause him to enter ye orders and resolutions of ye 
court according as shalbe agreed upon by ye Court and 
see that ye said Books be fairly engroced, and all letters to 
and froyn ye Connpany to he registered ; and to see that 
such letters as shallbe ordered by ye court for ye publick 
may be drawn and prepared for ye court. Generally to 
oversee all inferior officers perform their duties. The Dep- 
uty to have a speciall charge of ye committees. To keep 
the Court of Committees upon all occasions. To Suffer 
no warrants to be made and signed for issuing of money 
but in ye open Court of Committees after examination of 
ye cause. 

" The Counsell. That a Register of ye Counsell be kept 
and read every Quarter Court, that they may be required to 
attend, and if there be any want, then to be supplyed with 
such men of quahtye and sufficiency as will attend that 
service. That they may be warned all to come and take 
their oaths, and their chief care shalbe to-gether with ye 
Treasurer or his Deputy to make orders, and Laws for 
ye well ordering of ye Company here and ye Colony there 
in Virginia. 

" The Committees [16 members]. That every year 6 
new shalbe chosen and 6 of ye old dismissed. To deal 
in all businesses of buying and selling for ye company — 



304 UNDER THE COMPANY 

hiring and furnishing of ships that are imployed for ye 
company and providing of all necessaries, etc, to be sent to 
Vu'ginia, and to regard the bestowing and safe keeping 
of such commodities as shalbe returned thence, to be laid 
up where ye company shall appoint. In generall faithfully 
to perform such things as shalbe committed to them by ye 
Governor, Deputy, and Company. That they be carefull 
to appoint 2 or 3, at least among themselves who shall 
always be j)i'esent at ye buying of all provisions for ye 
company by ye Husband and that no prices be agreed upon 
without such consent, etc. 

" For ye Auditors. It is referred to Sir Edwin Sandys 
to propound such rules as he holds fit to be observed in 
ye execution of that office, for that he hath been long 
acquainted with it. 

" The Secretary. This is referred to an order of Court 
already made for that purpose which is to-morrow to be 
presented to ye Lords and if occasion be to add or change. 
The Secretary's wages <£20 pr annum. 

" The Bookkeei^er. The bookkeeper shall receave his 
charge from ye auditors and receave . . . Salary at ye 
year's end as ye auditors shall find his pains to deserve. 
This officer is to be sworn to deal justly and truly in his 
place, to conceal nothing that may serve for ye clearing of 
ye accompts. [His wages had been <£50 per annum.] 

'-'•The Husband. The Husband being sworn — Is to be 
directed in his office by ye Treasurer, Deputy and Commit- 
tees to keep his accompts exactly and to bring them in first 
to be allowed by ye Deputy and Committees or under ye 
hands of 3 or more of them and then to be presented to 
ye Auditors. His wages £50 pr annum. 

" The Beadle. To be at the command of the Treasurer, 
Deputy and Courts : wages £40 pr annum. 

" Generall Consyder aeons. 1. That all officers be 
sworne. 

" 2. That at ye year's end the Treasurer shall deliver ye 
state of ye plantation & the auditors ye state of ye Cash 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 305 

& accomptes — and having so done shall with draw them- 
selves ; that himself or a new be chosen. 

" 3. That the Treasurer and Deputy of the Company, 
Governor and all principall officers in Virginia, to be chosen 
by ye ballating box and it is thought fit if these consent to 
provide one against to-morrow. 

" The Oath. You shall swear to be true and faithfull 
to our soveraigne Lord the King his heirs and successors ; 
you shall truly and faithfidly perform all matters belong- 
ing to that office so much as shall lie in your power, unless 
you shall have a lawfull and justifiable excuse or be other- 
wise dispensed with by a general Court : you shall give up 
a true and just accompt of all such moneys and goods be- 
longing to the company, or to the Colony of Virginia as 
shall come to your hands according to the order of the 
Company. 

" You shall practise no hurt or danger to ye plantation 
of Virginia nor suffer it (what in you lies) to be done by 
any other, but shall hinder or discover it (to ye Governor, 
or Deputy, or to some one or more of ye Counsell) to ye 
utmost of your power. So help you God." 

In September, 1618, after the letters from and the com- 
plaints against Governor Argall reached England, Sir 
Thomas Smythe, Alderman Johnson, and others wrote to 
Lord De la Warr to proceed against Argall (Robert Lord 
Rich's partner), and after the news of Lord De la Warr's 
death, they were instrumental in having a new governor 
(Yeardley) sent to Virginia, to examine into the said com- 
plaints.^ As a consequence of these and other proceedings. 
Lord Rich was instrumental in organizing a party to op- 
pose "the merchants who then swayed the Va. Courts." 
This party (called " the lords' and gentlemen's party ") 
pursued with great earnestness the displacing of Smythe 
and Johnson (" the merchants' party ") from the govern- 

1 It seems well to remark here that there was a family connection between 
Smythe and Argall ; but no blood kin, unless remote. 



306 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ment, and, cooperating with the Sandys party (called " the 
auditors' party "), they succeeded accordingly. That is, 
they removed Johnson, but Smythe retired voluntarily. 

The Easter term quarter court met, as these courts had 
previously done, at Sir Thomas Smythe's house in Philpot 
Lane, May 8, 1619. The old treasurer (Sir Thomas 
Smythe) " desired the court to proceed to the choice of 
their officers, signifying that for these twelve years he hath 
willingly spent his labour and endeavours for the support 
thereof ; and being now appointed by the King a commis- 
sioner of his Navy, he could not give such good attend- 
ance as he therein desired ; requesting the court to shew 
him so much favour, as now to dispense with him, and to 
elect some worthy man in his place, for he had resolved to 
relinquish it, and therefore desired that two requests might 
be granted hun for all his service done unto them. First, 
that he might have their good report according as he hath 
deserved : and secondly that his account might be with all 
speed audited, that before he died, he might see the same 
cleared and receive his Quietus est under the Company's 
Seal." The court finding his resolution to be settled, and 
that he would not stand in election, proceeded according 
to the last standing orders, now read and approved, to make 
choice of their treasurer. They used a " balletting box," 
said to have been brought in by Captain John Bargrave. 
Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Wolstenholme, and Mr. Alder- 
man Johnson were placed in nomination and accordingly 
balloted for. The lot fell to Sir Edwin Sandys to be their 
treasurer, he having 59 balls. Sir John Wolstenholme 23, 
and Alderman Johnson 18 ; whereupon his oath was admin- 
istered. 

" Upon the absence of Sir Thomas Smythe the Court 
was moved by Sir Edwin Sandys, now Treasurer, that in 
consideration of the great trouble mixed often with much 
sorrow which Sir Thomas Smythe had endured, during the 
term of twelve years past from the very infancy of the 
plantation to this present, and had now surrendered up his 



ENGLAND, OCTOBER, 1618 — MAY 8, 1619 307 

place at such time as (by the blessing of God) there was 
hopes that the action might proceed and prosper if it were 
followed with care and industry requisite for so great a 
business : that, therefore, in some sort according to their 
abilities it were fitting to express their thankfulness for 
his good endeavours in confering twenty shares upon him ; 
which being put to the question, it was agreed he should 
have twenty great shares, and they were confirmed unto 
him by a general erection of hands." And thus the ad- 
ministration of the company in England for the affairs of 
Virginia by Sir Thomas Smythe came to an apparently 
pleasant ending. But party spirit was already at work. 
Ever since 1609 Smythe had been chosen annually as 
treasurer, because he was regarded as a patriot ; it was 
now asserted that he had become " involved with the court 
and Spanish party," and Wodenoth says that it was this 
" which brought on his casting out and the establishing of 
Sir Edwin Sandys as Treasurer and Governor of the Com- 
pany." There is probably some truth in this, as Smythe 
had been appointed one of the commissioners of the royal 
navy on July 3, 1618 ; and we shall hereafter find him 
affiliating with the party that Wodenoth called " the court 
party." Then as now for some private or public reason 
members of one party sometimes went over to the other. 



XXIV 

VIRGINIA, APRIL ^NOVEMBER, 1619 

SIB GEORGE YEARDLEY, GOVERNOR, ESTABLISHING THE 
COLONY UNDER A POPULAR FORM OF GOVERNMENT 

Sir George Yeardley left England in the George on 
January 29, 1619 (in wliich ship there died, en route, 14 
landsmen and 3 seamen), and arrived in Virginia with our 
Magna Charta, etc., April 29, following. Three ships 
arrived near the same time, namely, the George, with 
about 100 ; the Diana (left England with the 100 children 
from London), with about 80 ; and the Edwin, Captain 
George Bargrave, with 30. (Captain John Martin, Sir 
George Yeardley, Gilbert Peppett, Lieutenant St. John, 
Captain George Bargrave, Captain John Bargrave, and 
Luke Boys, became involved in a long suit over "a fowling 
peice " that was brought in the Edwin at this time.) 

When the governor reached Jamestown he found " the 
plantation to be in a great scarcity for want of corn." 
The old planters in their " Brief Declaration " give a very 
gloomy view of the condition in which he found the colony; 
but this was for a party purpose. " For Forts, Towns 
and Plantations, he found these : James Citty, Henrico, 
Charles Citty and Hundred, Shirley Hundred, Arrahattock, 
Martin Brandon and Kicoughton." " Also Paspahayes 
or Argall Guift, Coxen Dale and the Maine. At James- 
town there was a church of Timber, fifty foot long and 
twenty foot broad, and another church at Henrico. Three 
authorized ministers and two who had not received orders. 
For people about the number of four hundred, in great 
want," etc. On the other hand. Sir Edwin Sandys gives a 
glowing account of the way " the private plantations " had 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 309 

flourished, saying, " at the coming away of Capt Argall at 
Easter, 1619, there were persons in the colony near one 
thousand ; " but " the estate of the public " (the company) 
" was gone and consumed." The number of people given 
by Sandys is evidently about correct. 

When Yeardley arrived he found a pinnace, belonging to 
Sir Ferdinando Gorges and commanded by Captain Edward 
Stallings, riding at anchor in the river ; soon after this she 
was suffered to run aground in Bowyer's Bay, where she 
was unloaded by the help of the longboat of the Diana, 
floated, and then carried into Southampton (Hampton) 
River. Here Stallings left her with only a boy, taking the 
rest of his men to row him up the river. He landed at 
Dancing Point, where he had a private quarrel (duel?) 
with Mr. William Epes, in which he was slain, his men 
and boat going on up to Martin's Brandon. The gover- 
nor, hearing of these things, sent Captain George Bar- 
grave and John Dameron to take the said men and boat 
and go to Kecoughtan, and taking Captain William 
Tucker, the commander there, to assist them in preserving 
the pinnace and loading for Sir F. Gorges ; " but it sunk 
ere the boat could get down." Captain John Martin em- 
ployed five of Stallings' men ; one, named Stoaks, entered 
the public service, and the rest returned to New England, 
or Canada, as Yeardley called it. The governor afterward 
settled with Ellis Cornish, the agent of Sir F. Gorges, for 
his losses. 

The equal and uniform kind of government which the 
managers of the movement had agreed upon at the Michael- 
mas ("St. Michael and All Angels ") term of their quarter 
court, in 1618, consisted of " Two Supreme Councils : " — 

'• I. The Council of State, which was to consist, for the 
present, of the Governor and his Counsellors," elected by 
the company court in England. 

" II. The General Assembly, which was to consist, for 
the present, of the aforesaid Council of State and two Bur- 
gesses chosen out of each Town Hundred or other particu- 
lar Plantation," by the people in Virginia. 



310 UNDER THE COMPANY 

As the laws, etc., of Virginia were required to conform, 
as nearly as may be, to the laws of England, this new form 
went as near to the government of Geneva as could well 
be expected. 

" Sir George Yeardley to begin his government added 
[?] to be of his Councell Capt. Francis West, Capt. Na- 
thaniel Powell, Master John Pory, Master John Rolfe, 
Master William Wickham and Master Samuel Macock." ^ 
I suppose these to be those named in the commission 
brought from England by him, as the Council were ap- 
pointed in England and not by the governor, and as most 
of them were members of the old Council. If so, it would 
seem that Captain Ralph Hamor, vice-admiral, and Captain 
John Martin, master of the ordnance, were omitted. John 
Pory was secretary of estate under the new government, 
somewhat similar to " Secretary and Recorder," the position 
held by John Rolfe under Argall. 

Stith (p. 157) says : "Mr. Rolfe's commission was either 
now expired ; or else, as I rather believe, he had given 
offence to the company, and was turned out of his place of 
Secretary. And this, I find some Reason to suspect, pro- 
ceeded from his too great submission and subserviency to 
Captain Argall's male practices. But however that was, 
the Earl of Warwick obtained that place from Sir Thomas 
Smith, for Mr. John Pory," etc. The company records 
state that Lord Rich recommended Pory, and he was a 
friend to that Lord ; but it seems quite certain that he was 
sent at the request of the governor (Yeardley), who had 
married his first cousin. The place was not in the gift 
of Sir Thomas Smythe ; nor was the Earl of Warwick 
(Lord Rich), then on friendly terms with him. 

To obtain needed victuals the governor soon sent CajDtain 
John Martin, Ensign Rossingham, Ensign Harrison, and 
others, in the shallop, to trade for corn with the Indians on 
the eastern shore, and Captain John Ward, in the Sampson, 
to fish on the New England coast. 

1 Arber's Smith, p. 540. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 311 

The magazine ship (the AVilliam and Thomas) was sent 
back with the tobacco crop of 1618, and otlier commodities 
of less moment, and with " a packet of writings from Abra- 
ham Peirsey, the cape-merchant, containing a general letter 
to the adventurers, an invoice of goods now sent, a bill of 
lading, a note of such goods as the country standeth in 
need of, an invoice of the goods which were laden by the 
George in 1617, with an account of the same goods, etc. 
He wrote that he was "overcharged with abundance of 
needless commodities, and wanted ploughs and other neces- 
saries, which he had often writ for," etc. 

The Gift of God left about the same time with letters 
from the governor to the Council in England. He wrote 
them of his voyage, of the condition of the colony, etc. 
He told them of the scarcity of food, but that he had 
already taken steps to supply this deficiency ; that he 
intended planting a large crop of corn and " something 
neglecting the planting of tobacco ; " of the public ser- 
vants, etc. ; some private matters — matters to be kept pri- 
vate — " there was a constant report in Virginia," he wrote, 
" and that not without many apparent probabilityes, that 
the ship [the Treasurer] was gone to robb the King of 
Spayne's subjects by seeking pillage in the West Indyes 
and that this was done by direction from my Lord of War- 
wick." He also sent the reports of the commission contra- 
dicting the charge of the barrenness of the country, etc. 

Smith's history states that in May came in the Mar- 
garet, of Bristol, etc. ; but this must be a mistake. The 
reference may be to the Marygold, which, according to 
Hotten's Lists, arrived in May ; but this is doubtful. Late 
in May or early in June, the George was sent to Newfound- 
land ; in her went the cape-merchant, Abraham Peirsey, 
with tobacco to trade for fish. It may be mentioned here 
that the cape-merchant, in his letter just sent to England, 
had asked for the right " to sell commodities as he can 
[without having prices fixed for him], and as is usual in 
free trading." 



312 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The governor had now brought other things into shape, 
and was ready to take up his " general instructions for the 
better estabhshing of a Commonwealth." He issued a pro- 
clamation : " That all those that were resident here before 
the departure of Sir Thomas Dale [April, 1616] should be 
freed and acquitted from such publique services and labours 
which formerly they suffered, and that those cruel laws by 
which we had so long been governed were now abrogated, 
and that we were now to be governed by those free laws 
which his Majesties subjects live under in Englande. . . . 
And that they might have a hand in the governing of them- 
selves, it was granted that a General Assembly should be 
held yearly once, whereat were to be present the Governor 
and Counsell, with two Burgesses from each Plantation 
freely to he elected hy the inhahitants thereof ; this As- 
sembly to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes 
and orders should by them be thought good and prof&ttable 
for our subsistence." 

Still all was not plain sailing. Robert Poole, interpre- 
ter, reported to the governor " certain misdemeanors " of 
Captain Henry Spellman at Opechancanough's court. Poole 
charged th'at " he spake very unreverently against Yeard- 
ley, and informed Opochancano that within a year there 
would come a Governor greater than this that now is in 
place," — that is, " the Earl of Warwick himself in per- 
son, that. Captain ArgoU would be his pilot, and then he 
would call Sir George Yeardly into like question and exam- 
ination for his own government." The examination of 
Poole was sent into England in the Prosperous, which sailed 
from Virginia prior to August, 1619. Spellman had re- 
cently returned from England in the Treasurer, Argall's 
ship, and was one of the Argall party. 

The Trial is said to have come in with corn and cattle 
on July 5. This, I think, was John Pountis' ship ; if so, 
there were fifty emigrants on board ; but there is confu- 
sion in the accounts of the arrivals of the ships in Yeard- 
ley's first year. Captain Ward returned in the Sampson 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 313 

from New England in July. The George returned from 
Newfoundland, and Captain John Martin from the eastern 
shore about the same time, all bringing something to add 
to the general store. Yet party spirit was running high, 
not only in the company, but in the colony also, and Mar- 
tin was afterwards summoned before the General Assembly, 
where he was reproved for some acts of his against the In- 
dians on this voyage. Rossingham, Pory, and others, after- 
wards sustained Martin. One has constantly to regret the 
party controversies in the colony ; yet I do not know that 
they were any more bitter then than now. 

In order to establish one equal and uniform kind of gov- 
ernment over all Virginia, such as may be to the greatest 
benefit and comfort of the people, each town, hundred, and 
plantation was to be incorporated into one body corporate 
(a borough), under Hke laws and orders with the rest ; and 
in order to give the planters a hand in the governing of 
themselves each borough had the right to elect two bur- 
gesses to the General Assembly. These plantations were 
located in four large corporations or general boroughs which 
were laid out as follows : — 

I. The City of Henricus included Henrico (Farrar's 
Island), extending thence on both sides of James River 
to the westward, the pale run by Dale between the said 
river and the Appomattox River being the line on the south 
side. 

II. Charles City. From the said pale, including the 
neck of land now known as Jones Neck, eastward, down 
James River, on both sides, to the mouth of the Chicka- 
hominy River. 

III. James City extended down on both sides of the 
river, with the same bounds near the river as the present 
James City and Warwick ^ counties on the north side, and 
as the present Surry and Isle of Wight counties, or it may 
have extended to the Elizabeth River on the south side, as 
the south bounds are not definitely stated. 

^ Afterwards formed, and named for the Earl of Warwick. 



314 UNDER THE COMPANY 

IV. " The Burrough of Kiccowtan " extended from 
James City corporation to the bay. 

All settlements were then on, or near, James River. 

The following "towns, hundreds and plantations" elected 
burgesses : — 

I. The corporation of Henricus was then only one " bur- 
rough," the old planters at " Arrahattock," " Coxendale," 
and " Henrico," uniting, elected Thomas Dowse and John 
Polentine. 

II. The corporation of Charles City contained five bor- 
oughs which chose burgesses ; but those from Martin's Bran- 
don (Mr. Thomas Davis and Mr. Robert Stacy) were not 
allowed, thus reducing the number to four : — 

1. The old plantations of Bermuda Hundred, Sherley 
Hundred, and Charles City uniting elected Samuel Sharpe 
and Samuel Jordan. 

2. Smythe's Hundred elected Captain Thomas Graves 
and Mr. Walter Shelley. 

3. Flowerdieu Hundred elected Ensign Edmund Ros- 
singham and Mr. John Jefferson. 

4. Captain Ward's plantation elected Captain John Ward 
and Lieutenant (John) Gibbs. 

The last three boroughs were new plantations ; the last 
two having been just settled. 

III. The corporation of James City, also, contained four 
boroughs : — 

1. James City elected Captain William Powell and En- 
sign WilKam Spence. 

2. Aro-all's Gift elected Mr. Thomas Paulett and Mr. 

o 

Edward Gourgaing. 

3. Martin's Hundred elected Mr. John Boys and John 
Jackson. 

4. Captain Lawne's plantation elected Captain Christo- 
pher Lawne and Ensign Washer. The last two boroughs 
were new plantations recently settled. 

IV. The corporation of " Kiccowtan " was then only one 
borough, which elected Captain William Tucker and Wil- 
liam Capps. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 

It may be that the people " buikled better than » 
knew." However that may be, result proves this elec 
tion to have been one of the most important events in ,one 
of the most important movements in modern times, and it is 
greatly to be regretted — whatever the cause — that it had 
no historian to chronicle events fully and fairly. The elec- 
tion took place after the return of Ward and Rossingham ; 
but I have been unable to find anywhere the exact date, or 
any particular account of these first elections in which this 
nation for the first time exercised the right of suffrage and 
took a hand in its own government. As the burgesses 
were " chosen by the inhabitants of each town," I infer 
that suffrage was general ; as " all principall officers in 
Virginia were to be chosen by ye balloting box," I suppose 
that they were voted for by ballot ; and that there were 
parties in Virginia is certain. But were opposing candi- 
dates placed in nomination ? Did the Warwick party fuse 
with the Sandys party against the magazine (or merchant) 
party in Virginia as they did in England ? Probably not. 
We do not know, and it is useless to imagine ; yet this is 
one of those points in our history which inspire the imagi- 
nation to take wings and soar. 

" The Council of State " was oro^anized soon after the 
governor's arrival, since when the colony had been under 
its government. 

" The General Assembly," the first popular representa- 
tive legislative assembly ever held within the limits of the 
present United States, convened at Jamestown on Friday,' 
August 9, 1619; and every member thereof had been sent to 
Virginia under the administration of Sir Thomas Smythe. 

" The most convenient place we could finde to sit in was 
the Quire of the church." This I suppose to be the same 
church (since repaired, it may be) in which Lord De la 
Warr sat in 1610, although it is variously described at from 
50 by 20 feet, to 60 by 24. 

" Where Sir George Yeardley, the Governour, being sett 
downe in his accustomed jjJace, those of the Counsel of 



UNDER THE COMPANY 

.e sat next him on both handes, excepte onely the Sec- 
ccary, then appointed Speaker, who sat right before him ; 
John Twine, clerk of the General Assembly, being placed 
next the Speaker ; and Thomas Pierse, the Sergeant, stand- 
ing at the barre, to be ready for any service the Assembly 
should commaund him." 

" But forasmuche as men's affaires doe little prosper where 
God's service is neglected, all the Burgesses tooke their 
places in the Quire till a prayer was said by Mr [Richard] 
Bucke, the Minister, that it would please God to guide and 
to sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory and to the 
good of this Plantation. 

" Prayer being ended, to the intente that as we had be- 
gun at God Almighty, so we might proceed with awful 
and due respecte toward the [his?] Lieutenant, our most 
gratious and dread Soveraigne [James I.], all the Burgesses 
were intreated to retyre themselves into the body of the 
Churche, which being done, before they were fully ad- 
mitted, they were called in order and by name, and so every 
man (none staggering at it) tooke the oathe of Supremacy, 
and then entred the Assembly." The Council had been 
previously sworn. 

The first business before the Assembly was to decide who 
were entitled to sit as members thereof. Exceptions were 
taken to the burgesses from Captain Ward's plantation 
and from Martin's Brandon. Those from Ward's were 
seated, but it was declared unfit for those from Brandon 
to have place in the Assembly unless, " our very loving 
friend Captain John Martin, Esquire, Master of the ordi- 
nance," would relinquish certain privileges which had been 
granted to him in his patent. This, Martin refused to 
do, saying " that he would not infringe any parte of his 
Patente." This was the earliest contest in the colony on 
charter rights, and it continued to agitate the colony and 
company for years. This patent was much more liberal 
than those granted to others, and was naturally objected 
to by them ; but Martin was " educated to the law j " he 



VIRGINIA, APRIL— NOVEMBER, 1619 317 

knew his rights and, knowing, dared maintain them. He 
was the only member of the original first Council now liv- 
ing in Virginia. He said, " I hold my patent for my service 
don, which noe newe or late comer can meritt or challenge." 
The case against the burgesses from Ward's was really 
stronger than that against Martin's ; but there was evi- 
dently " wire pulling " from the first. 

The General Assembly as finally constituted consisted of 
the governor, at least six councilors (probably more ; I 
have not their commission, but Wyatt afterwards had nine- 
teen), and twenty burgesses. The governor had the veto 
power. 

The speaker, John Pory, was not a burgess, but of " the 
Council of State " and, as such, a member of the General 
Assembly. He had been a member of Parliament for 
Bridgewater, 1605-1611, and was a Master of Arts of Cam- 
bridge. " To their great ease and expedition he reduced 
all matters to be treated of by the Assembly into a ready 
method." Having delivered in brief the occasions of their 
meeting, he first read the commission for establishing the 
new form of government, and then " the Greate Charter." ^ 
The business to be considered was divided into " fower sev- 
erall objects, namely : — 

" First, the Great Charter of orders, lawes and privi- 
ledges ; 

" Secondly, which of the Instructions given by the Coun- 
sel in England to my lo : la : Warre, Captain Argall, and 
Sir George Yeardley, might become lawes ; 

" Thirdly, what lawes might issue out of the private 
conceipte of any of the Burgesses, or any other of the 
Colony ; and 

" Lastly, what petitions were fit to be sent to England." 

The Great Charter was divided into four books or divi- 



^ There are several omissions in the 154-165. I have used the original 

copy of this instrument as preserved copy in the Law Library of Congress, 

in the Randolph MSS., and in the Vir- in which there are also some omissions. 

ginia Historical Magazine, vol. ii. pp. The original has not been found. 



318 UNDER THE COMPANY 

sions wliicli were referred to committees/ " because this 
great Charter is to binde us and our heyers for ever." 
And " it pleased the Governour for expedition sake to have 
the second object of the fower [what instructions should 
become laws] to be examined and prepared by himself e " 
and the burgesses who were not on the aforesaid commit- 
tees. 

The Assembly went to work very nearly on the same 
lines which have been followed by many subsequent general 
assemblies. 

The committees made their final reports on the Great 
Charter on August 10. The first division related to the 
determination for setting- a laudable form of or"overnment 
in Virginia ; to easing the inhabitants from taxes by laying 
out public lands for support of officers, in Heu of wages ; 
etc. On this book the committee petitioned that the said 
lands might not infringe upon lands previously granted to 
the ancient planters by former governors. 

The second division related to forming boroughs ; redu- 
cing the plantations into four chief boroughs in which the 
adventurers and planters who came at their own cost be- 
fore the coming away of Sir Thomas Dale, etc., should have 
on the first division of land 100 acres for each personal ad- 
venture and for every single share of £12 10s paid ; and 
those sent in that time (prior to April, 1616) at the com- 
pany's charge, after serving the time due therefor, should 
have 100 acres, paying one shilling per annum free (quit ?) 
rent on each 50 acres, etc. Personal adventurers and single 
shares dating after Dale's coming away, as the former diffi- 
culties and dangers were then in great part overcome, were 
to have only 50 acres each with a free rent of one shilling 

1 Captain William Powell, Ensign uel Sharpe, William Capps, Mr. Pau- 
Rossingham, Captain Ward, Captain lett, Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Jackson, 
Tucker, Mr. Shelley, Thomas Dowse, the committee for the second and 
Samuel Jordan, and Mr. Boys com- fourth books. The committeemen 
posed the committee for perusing the were members of the House of Bur- 
first and third books; Captain Lawne, gesses ; none were members of the 
Captain Graves, Ensign Spence, Sam- Council. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 319 

thereon yearly to be paid " at the feast day o£ St. Michael 
the Archangel forever." This division related also to lay- 
ing out the companies, the common and the glebe lands in 
each of the four incorporations ; the college land in the 
city of Henricus, and the governor's own lands (2200 acres 
granted him for his long, good, and faithful service done) at 
Weanock. The committee sent several petitions to Eng- 
land on this division with reference to having the public 
and glebe lands settled, etc. ; the shares of land ; for a sub- 
treasurer to reside in the colony to collect rents, etc., and 
" lastly that they will be pleased to change the Savage name 
of Kiccowtcm, and to give that Incorporation a new name." 

The third division was relative to plantations ; the pla- 
cing thereof — private, illegal grants, etc. ; glebe lands and 
common lands for plantations. There was no petition sent 
to England on this division, but touching the placing of 
the plantations the governor gave it as his private opinion 
" that in these doubtfull times between us and the Indians, 
it would behove us not to make as large distances between 
Plantation and Plantation as ten miles, but for our more 
strength and security to draw nearer together." 

The fourth division contains sundry orders and laws, 
enacted in previous quarter courts, which were ratified and 
confirmed in the Michaelmas court, 1618, and sent to Vir- 
ginia " for their use and benefit ; " "land grants in Virginia 
hereafter to be passed by indenture, and to be made only in 
a full general quarter court ; " a long order allowing 50 acres 
for each person transported to Virginia after midsummer 
day (June 24:?), 1618, with several provisos, — "all grants, 
etc., to be made with equal favors, as near as may be, to 
the end that all complaint of partiality may be avoided." 
" All which said orders we hereby will and ordain to be 
firmly and inviolably kept and observed." Lastly, the gov- 
ernor and Council of State were to have all the aforesaid 
lands and territories surveyed, " so as that the territories of 
the said several cities and Burroughs and other particular 
plantations may be conveniently divided and known the 



320 UNDER THE COMPANY 

one from the other. Each Survey to be set down distinctly 
in writing and returned to us (the Council in England) 
under your hands and seals." 

There was no petition sent to England on the fourth 
book, and then, " there remaining no farther scruple in the 
minds of the Assembly touching the said Great Charter, 
the Speaker put the same to the question and it passed with 
the general assent and applause of the whole Assembly." 

The petitions, etc., passed by the Assembly had to be 
ratified in England before becoming laws ; but the Great 
Charter was law, and some of its orders remained in force 
(with some alteration, it may be, during the subsequent 
changes in the company and colony) until the Revolution. 

August 12 (Monday), the Assembly considered Martin's 
patent, " which of the Instructions might conveniently put 
on the habite of Lawes," etc. 

August 13, " such Lawes as might issue out of every 
man's private conceipte," — each class of laws being first 
considered by committees before being submitted to the 
General Assembly. 

A good many laws of sundry sorts were passed, namely : 
relative to the Indians, the treatment of them, trading with 
them, educating and converting them, etc. ; to aifairs of 
the church ; to planting corn, mulberry-trees, silk flax, Eng- 
lish flax, anise seed, vines, tobacco, etc. ; to land patents, 
landlords, tradesmen, mechanics, tenants, servants, etc. ; to 
" the Magazin," trading, etc. ; to the general conduct of 
affairs, private and public, in the colony ; and " against 
Idleness, Gaming, drunkeness and excesse in apparell." 

Rents, taxes, etc., " not to be exacted in money of us 
(whereof we have none at all, as we have no minte) but the 
true value of the rent in comodity." To this intent the 
price of tobacco was fixed by law, " the best at three shil- 
lings, and the second at eighteen pence the pounde. And 
any tobacco whatsoever which shall not prove vendible at 
the second price shall be immediately burnt before the own- 
er's face." Three shillings the pound then was probably 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 321 

equivalent to $300 per liuncli-ed pounds now, a price ■which 
we would be very glad to get for our shipping tobacco. 
They really got about as much per pound as we do per 
hundred. 

Among the cases considered on the 13th and 14th of 
August was the case of Henry Spelman and Robert Poole. 
As an illustration of the natural differences in evidences 
where there are parties, the Journal of the Assembly gives 
a long account of this trial, and alludes to Spelman (of 
" the Lords' party ") " as one that had in him moi^e of the 
savage then of the Christian."" On the other hand. Smith's 
history merely mentions the Assembly, sajs nothing of the 
case itself, but alludes to " the treachery of one Poule (an 
opposer of * the Lords' party '), in a manner turned hea- 
then.'' 

August 14, before dissolving, the General Assembly 
made " their last humble suit to the Counsell and Company 
in England, that they would be pleased, so soon as they 
shall find it convenient, to make good their promise set 
down at the conclusion of their comission for establishino- 

o 

the Counsel of State and General Assembly, — namely, 
that they will give us power to allow or disallow of their 
orders of court, as his Majesty, hath given them power to 
allow or to reject our lawes." 

And then " being constrained thereto by the intempera- 
ture of the weather and the falling: sick of diverse of the 
Burgesses," the " Governor prorogued the said General 
Assembly till the first of March, following, and in the mean 
season dissolved the same." 

" Because our intent is to ease all the inhabitants of 
Virginia forever of all taxes, and j^uhlic burthens as much 
as may be" etc. 

The Great Charter ordered that, for the support of the 
officers, 3000 acres of land should be laid out for the 
governor's land in the incorporation of James City. For 
the other officers, ministers, etc., 3000 acres for the com- 
pany, 1500 acres for the corporation, and 100 acres of 



322 UNDER THE COMPANY 

glebe land in each of the four great corporations ; and for 
the college, 10,000 acres in the city of Henricus. These 
lands were laid out as follows : — 

I. In " the Corporation of Henerico," on the north side 
of the river, from the Falls down to Henrico, containing 
about ten miles in length, were 3000 acres for the com- 
pany's lands, 1500 acres of the common land for the cor- 
poration, and 10,000 acres for the university, with other 
land (1000 acres?) belonging to the college. The uni- 
versity lands were partly of the lands already unpaled in 
the bend across the river and above Aiken Swamp bend, 
which was then called Coxendale, and in which the 100 acres 
of glebe land were located, and partly of other lands extend- 
ing up the river on the north side towards the Falls. These 
lands were set out for the planting of a university in tune to 
come. " The College for the training up of the children 
of those Infidels in true Religion, moral virtue and civility," 
was to be built at once with the funds arising from " a 
special grant and licence " which had been issued by James 
I. for a general contribution over the realm of England 
(through the archbishops) to that purpose. 

II. In the corporation of Charles City, the 3000 acres 
for the company was located on the north side below Sher- 
ley Hundred (Epes) Island, and the 1500 acres for the 
corporation on the south side below City Point. The 
special grant to Yeardley of 2200 acres (for his two single 
shares 200 acres, and for services rendered 2000 acres) 
was also in this corporation, in the Weynock bend of the 
river, on Kenwan Marsh and Mapscock and Queen's creeks, 
and opposite what was then called " Tobacco Point," on 
which Fort Powhatan was located in the late civil war. 
This plantation was afterwards known as " Tanks Wey^ 
nock." The governor's other plantation, " Flowerdieu 
Hundred," was across the river westward from this. I sup- 
pose that they had united in the election of burgesses. 

III. In the corporation of James City, the 3000 acres 
for the place of governor under the order of the Great 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 323 

Charter were located on the lands formerly conquered or 
purchased of the Paspihas and other grounds adjoining. 
This was " old Paspaheghe," a little more than a mile from 
Jamestown, on the north side of the river, towards the 
Chickahominy. " Argall's Guift," or " Town," was already 
located on this land,^ and there arose some litigation with 
the old planters, who had received grants thereon from 
Arofall and from Dale. Those from Dale were the first 
issued by a governor. Yeardley left England with fifty 
tenants for the governor's land, transported at the com- 
pany's charge and furnished at his ov/n, and he found six 
remaining of Captain Argall's guard, who were at once 
settled on the governor's lands. This charter also ordered 
that the governor's house in Jamestown, first built by " Sir 
Thomas Gates, at the charges and by the servants of the 
Company and since enlarged by others by the very same 
means, be and continue forever the Governor's house." 
The 3000 acres for the company's lands were above the 
governor's, adjoining the mouth of Chickahominy River. 
I cannot find definitely where the 1500 acres for the cor- 
poration and the 100 acres for the glebe were located. 
The ships of Lawne and Pountis had both brought a few 
tenants for the company's lands. 

IV. In Kecoughtan, the 3000 acres for the company and 
1500 acres for the corporation were on the east side of 
Southampton (Hampton) River. 

Those sent over at the charge of the company were to 
work out their seven years' term of service " to the half 
part of the profits " on the company's lands (the 3000- 
acre tracts). Of the company's half of the proceeds, one 
moiety was to pay the Council of State and other public 
offices ; the other moiety (after deducting one fifth for the 
wages of the bailiffs and other officers which should have 
the oversight of said tenants' lands, etc., and a sufficiency 
for wintering the public stock of cattle) was to be sent to 

^ This was a ground for the petition 10, in re " the former grants to the 
of the General Assembly on August antieut planters." 



324 UNDER THE COMPANY 

England for the public use of tlie company. The proceeds 
of the corporation lands (the 1500-acre tracts) were to pay 
the particular magistrates and officers of the corporation. 

Monthly courts were held in each corporation to do jus- 
tice in redressing of all small and petty matters, others of 
more consequence being referred to the governor and Coun- 
cil or the General Assembly. 

At some time during the summer of 1619, Captain Fran- 
cis West laid out the site of " Westover " as the location 
for the grant of lands in Virginia to Henry, fourth Lord 
De la Warr, as heir to his father the late lord governor 
of Virginia, but did not at that time obtain the grant to 
the lands from the governor of Virginia. 

Governor Sir George Yeardley (under the orders x)f the 
Great Charter, etc.) granted to the ancient planters, who 
had been here before the going away of Sir Thomas Dale, 
a full discharge from all further public service, excepting 
only such services as they should wilKngly undertake for 
the colony, or were bound in duty to perform by the laws 
of all nations ; and confirmed to them all their estates, 
real and personal, in as full and ample manner as the sub- 
jects of England held and enjoyed them. The last ship to 
arrive, " before the going away of Sir Thomas Dale," was 
the Treasurer, early in 1615. 

Those who paid their own way had always been as free 
as men serving in a joint stock are apt to be ; but those 
sent at the expense of the company had to work out the 
debt by serving a term of years. These terms began to 
expire after May, 1614, and some had certainly been granted 
lands by Dale in 1615-1616, by Yeardley in 1616-1617, 
and, at the end of the joint stock, by Argall in 1617- 
1619 ; but under " the Great Charter " a good many were 
freed and granted lands whose time had not yet expired, 
and the effect of this must have been very encouraging. 

The Treasurer returned to Virginia from the West Indies 
in September, 1619, in consort with "a man-of-war of 
Flushing." This voyage of this ship caused a great deal 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 325 

of contention then, and it may be that her acts were the 
source of what has resulted in the most serious danger to 
this nation since. The evidence regarding this voyage 
(much of which remains) was evidently written more for 
the purpose of concealing the facts than revealing them. 
I doubt if the ship made more than a pretense of going to 
the Azores Islands ; she reached the Bermudas in January, 
1619, and from thence in February or March went to 
the West Indies, where she took a Spanish cargo of a cer- 
tain number of negroes, some grain, wax, tallow, and other 
things of " littell worthe," and came with them (as afore- 
said) to Virginia, where, according to the account sent to 
the company, she received cold entertainment, and soon 
departed. But this statement is questionable; the date of 
her departure from Virginia is not certainly known. It 
was feared that the result of her act would provoke an 
attempt of the Spaniard upon the colony, either " by way 
of revenge, or by way of prevention, least we might in 
time make Virginia sedum belli against the West Indies." 
But the governor, a soldier truly bred in that university of 
war, the Low Countries, purposed to fortify a place or two, 
and to hold Virginia "maugre both Spaniards and Indians." 
The Treasurer left negroes in the colony, how many I do 
not know; but probably more than twenty. The lieutenant 
of the ship remained in Virginia, and his deposition was 
forwarded by Governor Yeardley, with the public letter, 
to the company. These documents must have been sent to 
England by the Trial or the Diana. But the Trial, on 
which the cape-merchant, Abraham Peirsey, went, arrived 
in England prior to November 25, 1619, having left Vir- 
ginia soon after the General Assembly. The Diana (which, 
therefore, quite certainly carried these documents) left late 
in 1619, or early in 1620, and reached England not long 
before February 16, 1620. 

Smith's iiistory states that " about the last of August 
came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars." 
I do not know to what party Captain John Smith belonged 



326 UNDER THE COMPANY 

in 1619 ; but he was in sympathy with the Warwick party 
when editing his history in 1624. John Rolfe is given as 
the authority for this statement. He was in sympathy with 
the Warwick party at that time, which party used the same 
foil in the Somers Islands, and his reference to " a dutch 
man of warre " was really applicable to the Treasurer. 
Smith (being then of the Warwick party) tells nothing of 
the piracy of this ship by name in his history, either in his 
account of Virginia or of the Bermudas, or of her taking 
negroes to either colony ; and, so far as I know, this state- 
ment in this history, which thus shields Warwick, is the 
only evidence from which it might even be inferred that 
negroes were brought to Virginia at this time by any other 
ship than the Treasurer. 

The evidence relative to " the man-of-war of Flushing," 
as we must expect with ships engaged in a contraband 
business, is as full of subterfuge as that relative to the 
Treasurer ; but it seems that she belonged to William and 
Peter Courten, merchants of London, Middelburgh, and 
Flushing ; was commanded by Captain John Powell, one of 
the most daring seamen of that day, and manned by Eng- 
lish as well as Dutch. So many ships from the Nether- 
lands, or of other nations under commissions from the 
Prince of Orange, were then preying upon the shipping of 
Spain that the term " Dutch man-of-war " was frequently 
applied to a " pyrate " ship, regardless of her nationality. 
So the term might have been as aptly applied to the Trea- 
surer as to " the man-of-war of Flushing," and evidently 
was so applied both in Virginia and in the Bermudas. 

Some of the negroes passed into the hands of the gover- 
nors of both Virginia and the Somers Islands. They were 
regarded as " the most proper and cheapest instruments 
for the plantations that can be, but not safe to be any 
where but under the Governor's eye." The climate of the 
Somers Islands, however, was more congenial to them than 
that of Virginia. The first negro taken to those islands 
was landed there only four years after the first emigrants. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 327 

in the summer of 1616. I do not know that these negroes 
were the first brought to the colony of Virginia. I do not 
remember to have seen any contemporary account which 
says so. The accounts which we have even of the voyages 
of the company's ships are very incomplete, and we have 
scarcely an idea of the private trading voyages which would 
have been most apt to bring such " purchas " to Virginia. 
Pory wrote in September, 1619, " in these five months of 
my continuance here, there have come at one time or an- 
other eleven sail of ships into this river." If he meant 
that these eleven ships came in after he did, at least three 
of them are not accounted for in our annals. 

The governor also sent by the Diana the journal of our 
first General Assembly, and in his public letter he not only 
told of the Treasurer, but of the laying out of the lands, etc. 
He said " there were eleven borouo^hs and not above five 
ministers," and asked for more ; told of the sickness and 
asked for physicians and apothecaries ; of the plentiful 
crops (two harvests) of the year ; wanted to erect fortifica- 
tions and asked to have engineers sent to the colony for the 
raising thereof ; desired for his better direction to have the 
laws of government and magistracy sent to him ; attributed 
the sickness to having to eat pork fresh and unseasoned for 
want of salt, and asked to have Sir Thomas Dale's salt works 
set up again, which had been allowed to go to wreck, etc. 

John Pory, the secretary of state (who now wrote the 
public letters), wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, the English 
ambassador in Holland (who was probably then at Middel- 
burgh), on October 10, 1619, and sent the letter to him, 
with a copy of the official record of the meeting of our 
first General Assembly, by Marmaduke Rayner, an Eng- 
lishman, who was the pilot of this " man-of-war of Flush- 
ing; " ^ and thus the only record of our first Assembly came 
to be preserved on board of this " Dutch man-of-war." The 
original has not been found. 

^ See the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. ix., fourth 
series, pp. 4-30, for the letter. 



328 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Beverley (1705) thought the first Assembly met in May, 
1620 ; Hening (1805) in June, 1619. 

" The proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia " 
were first published by George Bancroft in 1857.^ 

Thomas Dermer arrived in Virginia, September 18, 1619, 
from North Virginia, and found " the generall sickenesse 
over the land." He at once went up the river to Captain 
Ward's plantation, where he went to work hewing boards 
to repair his jDinnace. He (and his men) soon fell sick, and 
were " sore shaken with burning fevers." They recovered 
so late that they resolved to await a more temperate season 
for their return to the north. 

Captain John Bargrave, in his complaints, states that 
" he and his partner had sent two ships (the Sampson and 
Edwin) and 100 men in pay to Virginia and that the 
mariners sold his ships in Virginia to pay themselves 
wages," etc. These were small vessels, and very service- 
able in the waters of Virginia and in fishing to the north- 
ward. 

Governor Yeardley's first year ended on November 28, 

1619, and it was not then known in Virginia that Sir 
Edwin Sandys had succeeded Sir Thomas Smythe as trea- 
surer of the Virginia Company of London, unless the news 
had been brought by some unknown private trading ship 
(and I have found no reason for thinking so). The first 
ofi&cial news of that event reached Virginia on the Bona 
Nova, December 4, 1619. 

The accounts vary greatly as to the number of English 
in Virginia at the end of Sir Thomas Smythe's administra- 
tion, from "about 400" to "about 1300." There were 
certainly over 750, as the regular census taken in March, 

1620, fixes the number then in Virginia at 887, and less 
than 134 (many of whom had died) had arrived since 
November, 1619. Or, to state it more clearly, the census 
of December, 1618, places the number then here at 600 ; 

1 Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. iii., part 
i., pp. 329-358. 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 329 

there arrived between December, 1618, and November, 
1619, eight ships, which left England with 810 emigrants, 
making a total, with those in Virginia, of 1140 ; but there 
had died en route and in Virginia about 500, and about 
900 remained alive. In the spring of 1620, Sir Edwin 
Sandys placed the number at "near 1000." It must be 
stated, however, that at least one half of them were not 
acclimated, and most of these probably died the following 
summer. 

^' Though it were a great advancement of the Plantation 
to have so many men left there, well furnished, yet it seems 
to be but the least part of the services which they had then 
performed." 

Let us review their work briefly. The first protests 
against a royal form of government in this country were 
made in 1608 and 1609. They resulted in several steps, 
becoming more and more distinct, until our final declara- 
tion of independence. Three particular steps in this direc- 
tion had now been taken : the first company charter of 
1609 ; the second company charter of 1612 ; and, thirdly, 
" the Great Charter," granted November 28, 1618, not 
by the crown, but by the company under the aforesaid 
company charters to the colony. 

Under the business management of Sir Thomas Smythe, 
one of the leading men of affairs of that day, a founda- 
tion " was laid, whereon a flourishing state might, in pro- 
cess of time by the blessing of Almighty God, be laid." 
When it was thought good to " bend their cares to the 
setting there of a laudable form of government," Sir Edwin 
Sandys, the statesman, who had drafted their charters, was 
called on to assist Sir Thomas Smythe ; and he drafted the 
form of government under the authority granted by their 
charters.^ Sir Thomas Smythe and himself had been friendly 
and assisting to each other, and, although they afterwards 
became political opponents and assailed each other as parti- 

^ With the aid of John Selden and others, as subsequent circumstances 
make evident. 



330 UNDER THE COMPANY 

sail Democrats and Republicans assail each other now, pos- 
terity will finally do justice to both ; for they were largely 
instrumental in making possible (the one in securing the 
country for, the other in drafting) " the first example of a 
domestic parliament to regulate the internal concerns of 
this country, which," says Story, " was never lost sight of, 
but was afterwards cherished throughout America as the 
dearest birthright of freemen." 

Owing to the fact that so much of the Record is still 
missmg, and so much of that which has been found is of 
a partisan character, it is especially hard to go into details 
during the period of the company from 1609 to 1619 in- 
clusive ; but we can easily see the many pecuHar difficulties 
which the first managers — "the old founder party" — had 
to contend with, which the last administrations had not ; 
the many crucial tests which they had met " with a con- 
stant and patient resolution, until by the mercies of God" 
they overcame them. They had nourished and supported 
the infant colony, through disaster and disease, until she 
had become strong enough to begin to bear her own 
burdens. They opened the way for those who came after 
them, and their acts had a significance even broader than 
the bounds of their charters ; they made possible the set- 
tling of all subsequent English colonies in America, and 
under easier conditions than those which had existed with 
them. 

Of course this credit applies to the managers and planters 
in Virginia, as well as to the managers and adventurers in 
England. Lord De la Warr was the lord governor and 
captain-general of the colony for the greater part of this 
period (1609-1619) under the company, and although he 
was absent in England most of the time, so far as his 
health permitted he was devoting himself to the interest 
of his colony all the time, and he finally gave up his life in 
the great cause. He was well represented at all times by 
faithful lieutenants and deputies, — Sir Thomas Gates, 
Captain George Percy, Sir Thomas Dale, Captain George 



VIRGINIA, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1619 331 

Yeardley, and Captain Samuel Argall. He was succeeded 
by Sir George Yeardley, a man to whom this country owes 
as much as it does to any man. Justice must also be ren- 
dered to Sir George Somers, Captain Christopher Newport, 
and their other numerous co-laborers in the colony. 

It is very important to recognize fully the historic fact 
that the movement was under the influence of " past poli- 
tics," and although ex 'parte evidence is not as satisfactory 
as that which is unbiased, we must consider the evidence 
for all parties and deal as fairly by them as we can. 

Arthur Wodenoth (Woodnoth, Woolnoth, etc.), a gold- 
smith of London and former member of the Virginia com- 
pany, about 1645 wi'ote " An account and observation 
taken by A. W., a true friend and servant to Sir John 
Danvers and the Parliament interest, containing a great 
part of his [Danvers'] more public transactions, concerning 
the jjlantation of Virginia," etc. He left the manuscript 
with his cousin. Will. Wodenoth, under instructions to pub- 
lish it at a seasonable time. Before this time came Mr. 
Will. Wodenoth had died. It was published under the 
Commonwealth ^ in 1651, by Anthony Peniston, a brother 
goldsmith and former member of the Virginia Company, 
under the title of " A short collection of the most remark- 
able passages from the original to the dissolution of the 
Virginia Company." The author had asked his cousin to 
" view the Court-Books of the Virginia Company and the 
orders of the Council Board, and to add therefrom the year 
of our Lord in the Margent at every main transaction " ; 
but these books were not available either to Wodenoth or 
to Peniston, and the tract as published does not contain a 
single date. Having been written from memory after a 
considerable lapse of time Wodenoth has sometimes mixed 
incidents, and the tract is not always clear if taken by 
itself ; but after adding the dates in the margin and con- 
sidering it in connection with the records now available it 

^ It could not have beeu published during the reigns of James I. and 
Charles I. 



332 UNDER THE COMPANY 

becomes of real historic value. It is partisan, being written 
in the interest of Sir John Danvers and " the patriots," and 
against " the secret-court-Spanish party," and taken by itself 
only gives an ex parte idea of " past pohtics ; " but, with 
the light shed upon it by other evidences, it aids in reveal- 
ing how, beginning with the popular charter of 1609, 
events under the Virginia Company developed the inspira- 
tion which led up to the Commonwealth of England. And 
these evidences show that this nation was not brought forth 
in a day, and that our foundation was not laid with brick 
made without straw. The evolution has been going on 
ever since the free air of America inspired the first petitions 
against a royal form of government in 1608, to the present 
day. The germ is still unfolding, and so long as it remains 
true to the seed it will continue to put forth to the glory 
of the nation and for the betterment of mankind. 



UNDER THE COMPANY 

PART II 

THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF SIR EDWIN SANDYS AND 
THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 



ENGLAND, FROM EASTER COURT, MAY 8, 1619 — TRINITY 
COURT, JULY 8, 1620 

SIE EDWIN SANDYS, TREASUREB ; MR. JOHN FEBRAR, DEPUTY- 
TREASURER 

As will be seen hereafter, copies of some of the regular 
company Records for 1619-1624 have been preserved, and 
these enable me to give more of the details for this period. 

The other officers (see chapter XXIII) elected at the 
Easter quarter court were : auditors. Sir John Danvers, 
Mr. John Wroth, Mr. Essington, Mr. John Ferrar, Mr. 
Briggs, Mr. Wiseman, and Mr. Chambers ; secretary, 
Henry Fotherby ; bookkeeper, Valentine Markham ; hus- 
band, William Webb, and beadle, Francis Carter. 

The committee which had charge of a great part of the 
business management ^ was composed of sixteen members ; 
Ralph Gore, William Canning, William Palmer, William 
Winston, Thomas Wheatley, Edward Ditchfield, George 
Smith, Daniel Darnelly, Richard Morer, Mr. Bearblock, Mr. 
Caswell, Mr. Keightley, Mr. Wiseman, Mr. Barnard, and 
two other names which I could not decipher. 

Captain Daniel Tucker, who returned from the Bermudas 
in March, now asked the court for twenty shares in Virginia 



1 This committee bad been in exist- loss of the Records there is no com- 
ence from the first formation of the plete list of its members during 1609- 
Loudon Company ; but owing to the 1619. 



334 UNDER THE COMPANY 

for Ills former five years' services there, which request was 
referred for further consideration. The Earl of SaHsbury 
passed two shares of land in Virginia to Captain Brett. 

May 10, the Earl of Southampton was sworn a member 
of the king's Privy Council, where he was afterwards able 
to render the Virginia Company good service. 

May 15, Sir Edwin Sandys was a candidate for treasurer 
of the Somers Islands Company, but Sir Thomas Smythe was 
elected. This was the Easter term of the Somers Islands 
courts. 

Captain Samuel Argall returned to England in the Elli- 
nor about this time. Cushman says the tidings brought by 
him of Elder Blackwell's ship, etc., were ill " though his 
person be wellcome." 

The Spanish agents in England already knew of the 
piratical voyage of the Treasurer to the West Indies and 
had complained about it. And this fact, with Brewster's 
and the various other cases against Argall, together with 
the recent elections, were causing so much commotion, that 
Cushman thought best to spend two or three weeks in 
Kent, to let matters get into better shape before attempting 
to close the contract with the Virginia Company. 

May 22, at the weekly meeting of the company, Sir 
Edwin Sandys took steps to have the lotteries continued 
under the management of Gabriel Barbor. He also reported 
to the court the pecuniary condition of the company at 
that time. In his report he called in question the state- 
ment made by Sir Thomas Smythe at the resigning of his 
place, " that there was £4.000 for the new Treasurer to 
enter upon ; " mentioning that the charges for the ship Sir 
George Yeardley went in, and the other wherein the chil- 
dren from London were transported, and sundry other ac- 
counts ought to have been deducted. Smythe contended 
that his statement was correct ; his accounts were submitted 
to the recently elected auditors, and Mr. Maurice Abbot, 
Mr. Humphrey Handford, and Mr. Anthony Abdy were 
admitted to be present at the auditing to see that Sir 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1G20 335 

Thomas Smythe received no wrong ; but as it was also or- 
dered that Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Danvers, and Mr. 
John Wroth (three of the old auditors) should be of the 
quorum, and that nothing should be concluded without the 
consent of two of them at the least ; and as Sandys and 
Danvers were the auditors makino- the charofe ao;ainst the 
accounts of Smythe, the case, which now began to be carried 
forward, was virtually decided against him before it was 
fairly considered, and there was nothing for the auditors 
who sustained his accounts to do save to protest, and this 
they did do. 

Captain Edward Brewster's appeal from the verdict ren- 
dered against him in Virginia in October, 1618 (in the case 
between Argall and himself), was delivered into this court, 
and " referred to Sir Edwin Sandys and Deputy Ferrar to 
be by them delivered into the next court and the next 
Quarter Court to hear the appeal." 

Captain Edward Brewster, and his father, William Brew- 
ster, were both members of the Virginia Company of Lon- 
don; but I doubt if his father was Elder William Brewster, 
who was then in London as one of the assents of the Pil- 
grims in closing the contract for their going to Vu'ginia. 
On the other hand, it is questionable if he was the son of 
the William Brewster who died in Virginia in 1607. 

At a Virginia court, on May 29, a commission was given 
to the Bona Nova, John Johnson, master, to go to Virginia, 
being the first ship sent there by Sir Edwin Sandys' admin- 
istration. 

June 4, James I. issued orders forbidding any one to sell 
any tobacco in any of his dominions until the custom and 
import duty had been paid thereon, and the tobacco so 
sealed by his officers. 

June 5. The king's letters to the bishops had already 
resulted in the bringing in of about £1500 for erecting and 
building a college in Virginia for training Indian children 
in the true knowledge of God and some useful employment, 
and at the Virginia court of June 5, it was thought best to 



336 UNDER THE COMPANY 

forbear the building of the college awhile and to begin 
with the money thej have to provide an annual revenue, 
and out of that to begin the building, etc. To which pur- 
pose it was determined to send by the next ship fifty ten- 
ants to the college land at Henrico for planting of the same ; 
they to have half the benefit of their labors, and the other 
half to go towards beginning the buildings and for mainte- 
nance of the tutors and scholars. It was also proposed to 
send fifty tenants to the common lands " for raising a stock 
for paying duties there, and defraying the Company's charge 
here." The opposition (Smythe-Johnson) party objected 
that the plantation should receive much wrong if more 
men were sent over so soon, before those that were already 
gone had procured wherewithal to subsist ; but the motion 
to send the tenants was carried. Mr. John Wincopp, com- 
mended to the company by the Earl of Lincoln, intending 
to go in person to Virginia and there to plant himself and 
associates, presented his patent now to this court, which 
was referred to the committee that " meeteth upon Friday 
morning at Mr. Treasurer's (Sir Edwin Sandys) house to 
consider, and if need be, to correct the same." Captain 
Edward Brewster's grievances were presented to the coiu-t 
by Sandys, and copies delivered to Captain Argall. This 
case continued to come up in several subsequent courts, 
and orders were finally sent to Virginia " for the taking 
of depositions there regarding the same." 

June 17, at a preparative court, a petition by Captain 
John Bargrave was preferred regarding his suit against 
Sir Thomas Smythe. John Hodgson passed two shares to 
Francis Whitner, which he passed to Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. 
John Taverner passed three shares to Thomas Sheppard ; 
Martin Earle one share to Nicholas Buckeridge. Doctor 
Bohun passed one share each to Richard Boothby, Dr. 
Thomas Winston, Hugh Windham, John Tucker, and John 
Strange ; and Captain Edward Brewster passed one share 
to William Cranmer. " Sir Edwin Sandys moved that the 
Instructions given by his Majesty under the privy Seal 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 337 

to The Treasurer and company for the governing of the 
Plantation might be brought in." In forming the new 
government it was necessary to deal carefully with these 
instructions. 

June 19, the Trinity quarter court met. " Sir Thomas 
Smythe offered to satisfie any damage that hath been done 
by himself or his officers to the Company." The Earl of 
Warwick, Sir Thomas Cheek, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Mr. John 
Ferrar, deputy, and Captain N. Butler, were chosen to be 
of the Council. This was the first addition to His Maj- 
esty's Council for the company, under the new administra- 
tion. Agreed that Captain Argall was the governor when 
Brewster was condemned ; and " his proceedings against 
Brewster were referred to the Counsell to meet at my Lord 
of Warwick's and report to the Court. — Mr. Wincopp's 
Patent sealed. The business of the magazine ordered," 
etc. 

The orders for the better governing of the affairs of the 
Company of Virginia having been first framed and digested 
by a select committee, and then presented to the Coun- 
cil and by them approved, were afterwards read in the 
preparative court of June 17, and finally ratified by this 
quarter court (June 19). Many of them were old orders ; 
some old orders somewhat altered, and some were new 
orders. There were a few additions and alterations made 
in the quarter courts in the Easter and Trinity terms of 
1620, and then they were printed.^ They relate to " the 
Courts, Elections, the Treasurer, Deputie, Counseil, Audit- 
ors, Comitties, Secretary, Booke Keeper, Husband, Bedel, 
and Generalitie of the Company ; Officers in Virginia ; 
Laws ; Grants of Land ; Trade ; College ; and Accounts." 
Many of the books and other records are referred to as 
then existing. The auditors, committees, treasurers, and 
husbands, all kept separate sets of books. The secretary's 
office kept the books of the company (the " Blurr books " 
or blotters, the court books, etc.), including '^'^ first, a Book 

^ They are reprinted in Force's Collection of Historical Tracts, vol. iii. no. 6. 



338 UNDER THE COMPANY 

containing Letters, orders, &c from and to the King, 
Council, etc ; Second, a Book of Laws, standing orders, 
etc, beginning June 19"' 1619 ; Third, a Book of Patents, 
charters, indentures ; Public letters to and from Virginia, 
&c ; Fourth, a Book of the Acts of the general courts, 
beginning with a new Book at the last Quarter Court 
(May 8*'^ 1619) ; Fifth, a Book of the Acts of the comit- 
ties, beginning from the same court, including invoices 
of goods &c sent to and from Virginia, etc ; and a Sixth 
Book to contain the names of adventurers and their shares ; 
of all planters in Virginia, as well for the public, as upon 
private plantations, etc. And the Secretarie was to keep 
safe in the Company's chest of evidences, all the Bookes, 
aforesaid, as well as many loose documents of an important 
character." 

These facts show how complete the company records 
were, yet I doubt if a single original from "the Companies 
chest " remains ; but some first drafts, copies, and originals, 
the property of other parties to the instrument than the 
company, are still preserved. The most important of these, 
save the charters and documents of like character, are the 
original copies of the fourth book, the Acts of the General 
Courts, beginning with May 8 (N. S.), 1619, and ending 
June 17, 1624, now preserved in the Library of Congress 
at Washington, D. C.^ The copies made for Colonel Rich- 
ard Bland from the original copy are now in the library 
of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Va. My 
references to the Virginia courts have been taken from the 
original copies (at Washington) and from sundry abstracts 
of other official documents in the state paper office, London, 
and other repositories, public and private, in England and 
in America. 

The fourth book prepared for public perusal was really 

^ See Magazine of American History, cal Society, and the Rev. E. D. Neill. 

N. Y., 1893, vol. xxix. pp. 371-380. They are now being printed in full by 

Many extracts from these records have the State of Virginia, 
been printed by the Virginia Histori- 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 339 

the organ of tlie administration for the time being. It 
contains a great deal of most valuable and reliable informa- 
tion, but in party matters, questions, and controversies, it 
is of course more or less favorable to the party "which com- 
piled it, and whose official organ it was. 

June 24, " at a Va. court, the Gift having returned 
— certain parts of the letters from Sir George Yeardley 
sent by her were read to the court ; other portions had to 
be referred to the Council before they could be revealed. 
The Council sent their report to the Court stating that 
Capt. Argall had proceeded justly by trying Brewster by 
Marshall Law ; but for as much as it was objected that 
Capt. Brewster had committed no crime worthy of death, 
the case was referred to the Governor and Council of State 
in Virginia, to make examination of the cause and return 
certificate thereof," etc. The college being such a weighty 
business that an account of their proceedings therein had 
to be given to the state, the following choice committee 
was chosen to attend to the matter : " Sir Dudley Diggs, 
Sir John Dan vers, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir John Wolsten- 
holme, Mr John Ferrar, Dr. Anthony and Dr. Gulston. The 
following Auditors were chosen, John Wroth, Morris Ab- 
bott, Humphrey Handf ord, Anthony Abdy, Wm. Essiugton 
and Thomas Keightley. Robert Browne was allowed a bill 
of adventm-e of £25 — to be deducted out of ye £500 
adventure of ye Lord La Warr's and for his personal ad- 
venture 100 acres, being 3 shares in all." 

The portions of Yeardley's letter which could not be re- 
vealed to the open court related to the piratical voyage 
of the Treasurer to the West Indies. The proceedings 
thereon are described by Sir Nathaniel Rich as follows : 
" As soon as Sir Ed. Sandys received this letter of adver- 
tisement he assembled the Counsell of Virginia to ask their 
opinion in it (having first blotted my Lord of Warwicks 
name out of those letters and anytliing that might directly 
touch him and so left the information to rest wholy wpon 
Cap. Argall). Sir Ed. Sandys and the Counsell agreed 



340 UNDER THE COMPANY 

that it was fit to acquaint the Privy Council with it for so 
it was alleaged that by their oath they were bound, there 
being a clause in the oath that all matters of Importance 
concerning the state should be made known to the Privy 
Council. The resolution being thus taken Sir Ed. Sandys 
[being then friendly to the Earl of Warwick] considering 
how deeply this might concern my Lord of Warwick not 
only to the loss of his ship and goods (which yet was a great 
loss to my Lord, who only for the good of Virginia had 
been at a very great charge in twice setting her out) but 
also in case that these fellows (to save their own necks) 
should lay of the business upon my Lord of Warwick, as 
it was not unlikely they would, that then it might tend 
infinitely to the prejudice or rather ruin of his estate, and 
knowing that it was not the blotting out of my Lords name 
would serve the turn : Sir Ed. Sandys before he went to 
the Privy Council sent to my Lord of Warwick and myself 
to speak with us about it : after some conference and dif- 
ference in opinion touching our going to the Privy Council 
with this complaint we desired that Sir Ed. Sandys, Sir Jo. 
Danvers, Sir Ed. Harwood, my Lo. of Warwick and myself 
(with I think not above one or 2 more of the Counsell of 
Virginia) might meet the next morning at my Lord of 
Southampton's to confer further of it : Where it was re- 
solved that to make less opposition in the business and give 
a fairer way to the ending of it, Sir Ed. Sandys should 
pursue the directions given by those of the Virginia Coun- 
sell that were present at the opening of the letter, but that 
this should be done very cautiously, without any aggreva- 
tion and carried so, as might serve only to discharge our 
duties and with such a tenor of words (the effect whereof 
was considerately agreed upon) as might conduce to a quiet 
settlino" of the business : And because it was conceaved 
that this business might tend not only to my Lord of War- 
wick's loss but be of far more dangerous consequence to 
his person and estate. My Lord of Southampton promised 
himself to be then at the Counsell Table and upon the 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619— JULY 8, 1620 341 

opening of the matter by Sir E. Sandys to offer his opinion 
and advise to the Lords of the Privy Council to the same 
purpose so to quiet any further search or stirring in the 
business : His Lordship promised likewise to inform some 
other members of the Privy Council (chief members and 
ministers of State) and to entreat their favor likewise for 
a fair passage therein, as a complaint rather necessitated 
in regard of our Oath than a matter fit for their Lordships 
to enquire after seeing it was not to be doubted but the 
Ministers of the King of Spain would be inquisitive enough 
after such matters, and then would be a fitter time for their 
Lordships to take it into their further considerations : To 
this purpose he wished my Lord of Warwick to go with him 
to some of the Lords and to go alone of himself to others, 
to entreat their favour on Captain ArgalVs behalf: And 
this was so especially pursued and so cautiously handled 
that the issue was answerable. For both the Virsfinia 
Counsell had discharged their parts in acquainting the 
Privy Council with it, and the business was dismissed with- 
out prejudice to any. And so rested very quiett." 

The Garland, of 25 tons, was sent in June, 1619, for 
Mr. John Ferrar's plantation, with 45 persons ; but it went 
to the Bermuda Islands, where it was detained, and never 
reached Virgrinia. 

June 27, at a Virginia court, it was ordered that the 
copy of Mr. John Wincopp's patent for himself and asso- 
ciates should be read by the auditors, and the seal affixed if 
they found that it agreed with the original (which had been 
sealed at the quarter court on June 19) ; ff not, it was to be 
returned to the court. When this official copy of the patent 
was finally sealed, it was sent to Leyden (in July or August, 
I think) by Elder Brewster. When it was received, the 
Pilgrims had a solemn meeting and a day of humiliation to 
seek the Lord for his direction ; and their pastor preached 
them a sermon on 1 Samuel xxiii. 3, 4 : " And David's 
men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah : 
how much more then if we come to Keilah against the 



342 UNDER THE COMPANY 

armies of the Philistines? Then David enquired of the 
Lord yet again. And the Lord answered him and said, 
Arise, ofo down to Keilah ; for I will deliver the Philistines 
into thine hand." 

July 4, " at a Virginia Court, the Committee on the 
College in Virginia made their report ; they asked for a 
minister, who was to have fifty acres of land for him and 
his heirs forever ; a Captain to take charge of the tenants, 
who, with few exceptions, were to be single men of the fol- 
lowing trades — Smiths, Brickmakers, Bricklayers, Carpen- 
ters, Husbandmen, Potters and Turners. A warrant was to 
be issued to Sir Thomas Smythe for the payment of the 
collected money to Sir Edwin Sandys and Dr. Gulstone was 
to present unto George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury " 
such letters to be signed " for the speedy paying the monies 
from every Diocese, which yet remain unpaid." Mr. John 
Wroth was now added to the committee. The officer of 
the lotteries was referred to the auditors. There was a 
controversy about the place of meeting for the magazine 
adventurers. " Wni. Shacley transferred two shares, and 
Mrs. Millicent Ramsden three shares, to Oliver St. John." 

July 8, " upon the Earl of Warwick's solicitation and re- 
commendation, William Weldon was entertained to take 
charge of the fifty men to be sent to the college. Mr. 
Deputy Farrar's ship was employed to carry the aforesaid 
persons. The oath of the Council for Virginia altered by 
addition of these words : concerning the State. A discus- 
sion, in re The Magazine adventurers. Sir Thomas Smyth, 
Sir John Wolstenholme, Alderman Johnson, etc." ^ 

July 12, Sir Thomas Smythe was reelected governor of 
the East India Company. 

July 17, the Virginia court "considers the letters recently 
received by the magazine ship (the William and Thomas) 
from Abraham Peirsey, the cape-merchant in Virginia ; " 
pending which there was an open rupture between Sir 
Edwin Sandys and Alderman Johnson, who gave over the 

^ Very hard to read in the original copy. 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 343 

directorship of the magazine, and applied some ill language 
to Sir Edwin Sandys. To consider which the following 
committee of the Council for Virginia was appointed : the 
Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Warwick, Sir John Dan- 
vers, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Mr. John 
Wroth, Mr. George Thorpe, and Mr. Deputy Ferrar. They 
met the next day at Southampton House, and decided that 
Johnson was wrong, and ordered that " Mr Alderman 
shall at the next Court make public acknowledgement of 
his error." 

July 23. The Virginia courts were now usually held at 
Mr. Ferrar's house in St. Sithe's Lane, but this one was 
held at Sir Thomas Smythe's house in Philpott Lane. The 
difficulty between the treasurer, Sir Edwin Sandys, and 
Mr. Alderman Johnson was temporarily adjusted, and Sir 
John Wolstenholme and Sir Thomas Wroth were added 
to the committee to which it had been formerly referred, 
and they were ordered to form some just law for preventing 
the like abuse in the future. The whole crop of Virginia 
tobacco (20,000 pounds) for the year 1618, which arrived 
on the magazine ship, had been delivered into the custom- 
house, as the law required, to be weighed and the custom 
paid, and Mr. Jacob, the farmer of the impost on tobacco, 
held it until twelvepence custom upon every pound w^as 
paid, which the company asserted was " double above the 
book of rates, the same being but sixpence." They also 
said that they were freed by his Majesty's letters patents 
of all impost and custom, saving five per cent., and it was 
agreed that a petition to the said effect should be drawn 
to the lords commissioners of the treasury, and the Earl of 
Warwick, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Mr. Alderman Johnson, and 
Mr. Brooke, were requested to attend their lordships " upon 
Friday next, in the afternoon, for the clearing of the same." 
In the debate it was asserted that Jacob placed the same 
amount of custom duty on all tobacco ; that some Virginia 
tobacco would not bring over three or four shillings per 
pound, while Spanish tobacco was usually sold at eighteen 



344 UNDER THE COMPANY 

shillings a pound, and sometimes more. That is, Spanish 
tobacco fetched a sum equivalent to $1500 to $2000 per 
hundred pounds present values; and this w^ill explain the 
natural desire to introduce the cultivation of " Spanish 
Varinas" in Virginia. 

July 31, the Virginia court was held at Mr. Ferrar's 
house. An unknown person presented Mr. Treasurer Sandys 
with a letter from one desiring to remain unknown and 
unsought after, expressing an interest in the foundation of 
the college in Virginia, and presenting thereto " a Com- 
munion Cup," etc. 

Sir John Wolstenholme moved the court in behalf of the 
society of Martin's Hundred that they might be allowed a 
share of land in Virginia for every £12 10s spent on the 
recent voyage of the Gift of God, which proved so disas- 
trous; but Sir Edwin Sandys strongly opposed it for sev- 
eral reasons. He said : " If besides the persons trans- 
ported, they shall have allowance of land over again for all 
charges, perhaps they may take up a great part of the 
river : What may my Lord La Warr do ? Sir Thomas Gates 
and Sir Thomas Dale, besides a multitude of others, who 
have spent a large portion of their estates therein, and are 
not thought on ? " The motion was defeated ; but Sir 
Edward Harwood propounded that for encouragement of 
Martin's Hundred, there might be some quantity of land 
bestowed upon them by way of gratuity and service ; and 
this was favorably received and referred to the next quarter 
court. And as Sir John Wolstenholme had lent the com- 
pany <£1:00, without interest, his kindness was to be recom- 
pensed by giving him some land. " The Polonians resident 
in Virginia were enfranchised and made as free as any 
inhabitant there whatsoever [of whatever nationality], and 
some apprentices were to be put unto them so that their 
skill in making pitch and tar and soap ashes shall not die 
with them." The courts were now dissolved, for the long 
vacation, until Michaelmas time. 

Deputy Farrar's ship, the Bona Nova, of 200 tons, finally 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 345 

sailed in August with 120 persons, including the 50 ten- 
ants for the college lands and the same number for the 
common lands. This was the first ship sent out under the 
new administration which reached Virginia. 

Sir William Throckmorton, Richard Berkeley, George 
Thorpe, and John Smith of Nibley, in July engaged the 
Margaret, of Bristol, a ship of eighty tons, belonging to 
Edward Williams, to carry men for settling on their plan- 
tation in Virginia. Late in July, George Thorpe wrote 
from Bristol to John Smith, asking him " to hasten Mr 
Woodleafe and the mariners." Captain John Woodliffe, 
who had been eleven years in Virginia, was to have com- 
mand of the future settlement of Berkeley Town and Hun- 
dred. On September 14, the four adventurers signed the 
commission to him, and the covenant and agreement with 
him, and gave him the ordinances, directions, and instruc- 
tions for the government of our men and servants in the 
town and hundred of Berkeley, together with sundry mes- 
sages to Sir George Yeardley. The ship sailed with him 
from Bristol on September 26. The company records say 
" with 45 persons for Mr Barkley's Plantation," but in the 
certificate of John Swye, mayor of Bristol, there are only 
38. This was probably the first ship sent to Virginia by 
them. I have no evidence that the windbound ship of 
February, 1619, ever sailed. 

On September 19, the four associates wrote a letter to 
Governor Yeardley, requesting him to become a co-adven- 
turer with them, and sent it by this ship ; which, also, car- 
ried a letter of August 13, from Sir Edwin Sandys to the 
governor, and the communion plate which had been pre- 
sented to the college. Captain George Thorpe did not go 
over at this time. On October 10, he granted a fourth 
part of his own share in the Virginia venture to Robert 
Oldisworth and John Smith of Nibley. 

October 30, the Virginia court held the first meeting 
after vacation. A committee was appointed " to take a 
cote [of arms] for Virginia, and agree upon the Scale for 



346 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the Company." A letter was received from James I., rela- 
tive to sending divers dissolute persons to Virginia, which 
Edward Zoucli, knight marshal, would give information 
of ; after considering it, there being no present means of 
transporting them to Vii-ginia, it was thought best to re- 
serve a full answer till the next court ; and Sir John Dan- 
vers promised to explain the reason to Mr. Secretary Cal- 
vert and Sir Edward Zouch. At the next court, November 
13, " it was agreed with all conveniency to fulfill his majes- 
ty's command, and to send them over to be servants." 
The lord mayor was to be asked to keep them in Bride- 
well until they could be sent, and Mr. Treasurer Sandys 
was to give his majesty an answer by Mr. Secretary Calvert. 
Nothing as yet having been done about a seal for the com- 
pany, it was agreed to ask Mr. Harecutious (?) to give the 
auditors some time a meeting at the house of Sir Edwin 
Sandys, to " devise to take a Cote for Virginia and agree 
upon the Scale." 

November 20, James I. issued a proclamation forbidding 
the sale of tobacco until all custom and impost dues had 
been paid and the tobacco assorted or " garbled as other 
drugs are." 

November 25, the preparative Virginia court was held. 
The device for the legal seal was presented for inspection ; 
the auditors had spoken to one for the cutting of it, but Mr. 
William Hole (" Engraver to the King ") claimed to have a 
patent for the engraving of all seals which hath the king's 
arms thereon, and Mr. Christopher Brooke of Lincoln's 
Inn was requested to examine this said patent and report 
to the court thereon.^ At this court Abraham Peirsey had 
two hundred acres of land in Virginia given him. This 
was the cape-merchant who left Virginia very soon after 
the first session of the General Assembly ; his business was 
about the masfazine. 

^ As Anally adopted the escutcheon eastern crown, having as supporters 

is quartered with the arms of the two men in armor, beavers open, hel- 

Stuart kings — England and France, mets with three ostrich feathers, each 

Scotland and Ireland — crested by a holding a lance. Motto: En dat Vir- 

maiden queen with flowing hair and ginia quintura. 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 347 

November 27, the Michaelmas quarter court met. Before 
the reading of the courts Mr. Treasurer Saudys presented 
a list of his Majesty's Councilors of Virginia, being 114 
in all (including Robert Heath, Esq., Recorder of the city 
of London, and Thomas Gibbs, Esq., recently appointed), 
90 of whom were still living, and those who had not taken 
their oaths were to repair to the lord chancellor or the 
lord chamberlain to be sworn. Sir Edwin Sandys then 
delivered a long discourse expressive of his ideas as to what 
should be done for the benefit of Virginia; he said, "not 
much above three years ago there were returned from Vir- 
ginia twelve several commodities sold openly in court to 
the great honour of the action and encouragement of the 
adventurers ; since that time there hath been but little re- 
turned worth the speaking of, save tobacco and sassafras." 
He was opposed to the immoderate following of tobacco, 
and proposed to insert a new covenant into all patents of 
land hereafter granted, that the patentees should not apply 
themselves chiefly to tobacco, but also to other specified 
commodities, " an example whereof they should see in the 
patent lying before them to be passed in this court to Mr. 
John Delbridge and his associates." He then goes on to 
praise the services rendered in Virginia by Sir Thomas 
Gates and Su' Thomas Dale, and then tells of the steps 
already taken under Sir George Yeardley " to set up the 
public again " by laying out the sundry classes of public 
lands in Virginia. Regarding which he makes five pro- 
positions : first, that the company should selid, the next 
spring, 100 tenants for the governor's land, 100 for the 
company's, and 100 for the college land ; second, to supply 
them with 100 young persons to be their apprentices ; 
third, with 100 young and uncorrupt maids to become 
wives ; and fourth, with 60 heifers ; fifth, all of which ten- 
ants "as they had already done this year," he proposed " to 
send by ships trading to Newfoundland [North Virginia ?], 
and so to transport them at a total charge of six pounds 
a person." He concludes by promising not to leave the 



348 UNDER THE COMPANY 

company a penny in debt at the end of his term. This 
court addressed a letter to the lord mayor (Sir William 
Cockayne), the aldermen and common council of London, 
relative to the 100 young persons for apprentices, which 
they hoped to obtain from the city "on somewhat similar 
terms as they formerly had done." The reply sent by 
them to the king was not fully satisfactory to him, " for the 
King's desire admitted of no delays," and he required the 
company to have fifty of the one hundred dissolute persons 
shipped away with all speed, and they were obliged, not- 
withstanding the many inconveniences, to make the best 
arrangements for shipping that they could. It was thought 
that these men might mutiny, and I infer that they were — 
or that among them were — some of the dispossessed natives 
of Ireland who were certainly sent to Virginia about this 
time. The company had formerly granted to Captain 
Christopher Newport a bill of adventure of four hundred 
pounds, and Sir Edwin Sandys was authorized by this court 
to write to the governor and Council of State in Virginia to 
lay out some part of the same for the benefit of his son and 
heir, John Newport. Matthew Cavill was admitted into 
the company, and two shares were given him. The Earl of 
Warwick, Sir Edwin Sandys, Mr. Ferrar, and others pro- 
posed sending some of those forced on the company by the 
king to the Somers Islands. The quality of these people 
was various ; at an extraordinary court on December 2, Sir 
John Dan vers stated that the knight marshal (Zouch) had 
promised if " they may be sent presently, he would furnish 
the company with such persons of what quality and condi- 
tion they desired." It was determined at this court that 
Mr. Treasurer Sandys should carry before the Privy Coun- 
cil the question between Mr. Jacob and the company about 
the custom due on their tobacco ; and the Earl of Warwick, 
Lord Paget, Lord Cavendish, Sir John Danvers, Sir Na- 
thaniel Rich, Mr. John Wroth, and Mr. Cranmore (Cran- 
mer) were entreated to be assisting to him in the premises. 
On December 11, Sir Edwin Sandys acquainted the Vir- 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 349 

ginia court " that Mr. John Delbridge, purposing to settle 
a particular colony in Virginia, desired that for the defray- 
ing some part of his charges, the Company would admit 
him to fish at Cape Cod." 

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was a member of both the 
North and South Virginia Companies, and who was present 
when Delbridge's patent was granted on November 27, 
was again present, and promptly opposed this implied right 
of the southern company to grant privileges within the 
bounds of the northern. " He alleged that he always 
favoured Mr Delbridge, but in this thought himself some- 
thing touched that he should sue to this company and not 
rather to him as properly belonging to the North Colony to 
give liberty for the fishing in that place it lying within 
their latitude." 

Sandys replied : " The Companys of the South and North 
plantations are the one free of the other, and the letters- 
patents is clear that each may fish within the other, the sea 
being free for both, which if the north colony abridge them 
of this, they would take away their means and encourage- 
ment of sending of men." 

" Sir Ferdinando Gorges replyed that if he mistake not 
himself both the Companys were limited by the patent 
[of 1606] unto which he would submit himself e." 

" The Virginia court referred the decision of the case to 
the Council for Virginia [34° to 45° north latitude], who 
are of both Companies — to examine the letters-patent, 
to-morrow afternoon at my Lord of Southampton's and 
accordingly to determine the dispute." 

On December 12 this Council met at Southampton House, 
and " having disputed the business they could not decide 
the case, but differed the one party from the other." 

The court of December 11 agreed with Captain Thomp- 
son " for his ship the [Brother ?] Jonathan for carrying the 
maids for wives to Virginia. Ordered a table to be hung 
in the court room on which the names of givers and of 
their gifts to Virginia were to be inserted, and the minis- 



350 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ters of Virginia were to be requested to commend them to 
God in tlieir prayers." The term of the lotteries having 
expired, the court renewed the same till midsummer, 1620. 
Favorable letters had been received from the Archbishop of 
York relative to the collections in his realm, and the com- 
pany acknowledged their thanks " to the Diocess of Lon- 
don, my Lord Bishop having sent in a full thousand 
pounds." 

On December 25, Sir Edwin Sandys informed the Vir- 
ginia court that their case against Mr. Jacob had been 
finally considered by the Privy Council ; that " Mr. Attor- 
ney-General [H. Yelverton] delivered his clear opinion to 
the Lords, that the Company by their patent were free from 
imposition ; and, in fine, it was ordered by their Lordships 
that the said Mr. Jacobb should deliver the said tobacco 
unto them, paying all other duties that might appertain 
thereunto, which was submitted to their Lordships' judg- 
ments. Therefore, he moved that the petition, together 
with their Lordships' order, might be entered in the court- 
book." And this was done. Although the Council had 
failed to come to an agreement as to the rights of the two 
companies over the northern fisheries, this Virginia court 
gave " a license under their seal unto the society of Smythe's 
Hundred to go a fishing." John Cage, Esq., transferred 
six shares to Dr. Theodore Gulstone and three to Isaac Sea- 
ward. Dr. Theodore Gulstone purchased three shares from 
Peter Bartle and one from John Payne, gent. Augustine 
Stewart transferred three shares to Sir Henry Jones, and 
Katharine Clarke, widow, passed one share to Edward Har- 
ber, Esquire. 

Sir Thomas Smythe's account had been brought in to 
the auditors, and for the speedy auditing of the same it was 
determined that a publication should be issued. First, " to 
set down the names of every adventurer and their several 
sums adventured, that thereby all may take notice of the 
sums accredited to them, and receive their land proportion- 
able before the best were possessed by new adventurers and 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 351 

planters." Second, " to confute such scandalous reports 
as have been divulged of Vhginia by the justification of 
the inhabitants there ; the said publication to be drafted by 
Sir Edwin Sandys and Dr. Winstone." The case against 
Captain Argall was also proceeded with. The company 
made choice of Mr. Edward Herbert for their lawyer, and 
Mr. Thomas Keightley represented the magazine, while 
Argall chose Sir Nathaniel Rich to represent him. The 
papers in this case which remain show that it was very 
warmly contested on all sides. 

The petition from the Virginia Company, " praying that 
they may be furnished with one hundred more of children 
by the city of London to be sent into Virginia the next 
Spring," was presented to the Common Council on De- 
cember 17. It was again considered on the 28th, and was 
agreed to upon certain conditions ; " Indentures to be en- 
tered into between the Mayor, etc., of the city and the 
Virginia Company for performance of covenants." And 
Sir Thomas Bennett, Sir Thomas Lowe, Sir John Leman, 
Mr. Richard Pyott, Mr. William Gore, Mr. John Gore, and 
Mr. William Halliday, aldermen ; William Towerson, Rob- 
ert Bateman, William Stone, Daniel Hills, and Noadiah 
Rawdins, skinners ; Thomas Moulson, grocer, and John Wil- 
liams, goldsmith, or any six of them, whereof two to be 
aldermen, were appointed committees for the better order- 
ing, dispatch, and effecting of the said business.^ 

January 2, 1620, the Virginia court had read and allowed 
a commission to John Dameron, master of the Duty, to set 
sail as soon as possible for Virginia with the passengers 
commanded to be sent by his Majesty. Some of the tobacco 
had been put to sale by the candle: " Mr. Thomas MeUing 
bidding 3 shilling wanting a penny at the going out of the 
flame had it adjudged to him." 

Elias Roberts was granted a share of lands in Virginia 
by a bill delivered him. 

January 9, James I. issued a proclamation restraining the 

^ Repertory, xxxiv. 276. Journal, xxxi. 122 seq. 



352 UNDER THE COMPANY 

planting of tobacco in England and Wales. " It is not 
unknown what dislike we have ever had of the use of 
tobacco, as tending to a general and new corruption both 
of men's bodies and manners ; nevertheless it is of the two 
more tolerable that the same should be imported amongst 
many other vanities which come from beyond the seas than 
permitted to be planted here within this realm, to abuse 
and mis-employ the soil of this fruitful Kingdom. . . . The 
Colonies of Virginia and the Somers Islands are proper and 
natural climates for that plant, and receive much comfort 
by the importation of it into this Kingdom, and it tends 
to the increase of our Customs." ^ 

An extraordinary court was convened January 18 to 
consider a matter recommended to them by his Majesty, 
" whether the Company would farm the impost of tobacco 
or any part thereof at eight thousand pounds per annum, 
and pay 12 pence a pound for custom, some Spanish tobacco 
having sold at 20 shillings per pound it had been deter- 
mined to raise the custom." The company refused to do 
this ; but it was agreed to pay the king threepence per 
pound custom and ninepence more (making the twelve- 
pence required) so long as his proclamation inhibiting the 
planting of tobacco for five years remained in force ; and 
Mr. Thomas Keightley, with some others, agreed to farm a 
third part of the tobacco. 

At the court on the 22d, Mr. Treasurer acquainted the 
company that the lords commissioners for the treasury liked 
their proposition (^?l re custom, etc., on tobacco) ; and the 
following committee was appointed to repair to the clerk 
of the Council on January 24, to see that the bargain was 
properly recorded, etc. : Sir John Danvers, Sir Nathaniel 
Rich, Mr. Thomas Keightley, and Mr. Berblock. The 
treasurer and deputy informed the court that on the day 
before they had held conference with the lord mayor rela- 
tive to the children for Virginia. The committees em- 
ployed a ship called the London Merchant to be ready in 

^ Proclamations, James I., No. 74. 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 353 

Tilburyfort the 2d of March to take in the passengers, etc. 
Humphrey Tomkins was admitted by bill of adventure. 

February 7, Sir Edwin Sandys wrote to Robert Naun- 
ton, secretary of state, asking the secretary (as he could 
not be present) to represent him before the Privy Council, 
" some of the children designed by the city having refused 
to go, and the city having no authority to compel them." 
The Council met that evening and issued the necessary au- 
thority to make them go " so that they could be put in a 
condition to be of use and service to the State." The 
lord mayor and aldermen afterwards made " some strange 
demands " which the Virginia court of February 10 could 
not grant ; but they sent a letter to the lord mayor on 
February 13, regretting that differences which had no solid 
foundation should have arisen between the committees for 
the city and themselves ; that on the city's part, the ,£500 
had been collected and the children provided ; that the 
company had supplied a fair ship for transporting them, 
and the Privy Council had, at the city's desire, granted 
their warrant for the shipment of such children, and the 
company trusted that the lord mayor and aldermen would 
proceed to the speedy ending of the differences. 

On February 5, the Virginia Company agreed with two 
ships (the Trial, of Master Edmonds, and the Falcon, Cap- 
tain Thomas Jones) for the transportation of cattle to Vir- 
ginia. Captain Jones, a servant to the Earl of Warwick, 
was then under arrest by the East India Company. He 
was released on February 10, on the Earl of Warwick's en- 
gaging to answer for what shall be objected against him ; 
but I have no evidence that he went to Virofinia at this 
time. 

February 10, John Archer, brother to Captain Gabriel 
Archer, was admitted for one share as heir to his said 
brother. Stephen Sparrow transferred one share to John 
Hope. 

The Hilary term of the quarter court was held on Feb- 
ruary 12 at the house of Sir Edwin Sandys, near Alders- 



354 UNDER THE COMPANY 

gate. Sir Edwin acquainted the court with indentures al- 
ready "ingrossed before them granted — the first — unto Mr. 
Robert Heath, the Recorder of London and his associates ; 
the second to Doctor Bohune, James Swifte and their 
associates for transportation of 300 persons ; the third, to 
WilHam Tracy Esquire and his associates for transportation 
of 500 persons ; and the fourth to John Peirce and his 
associates, their heires and assignes," all of which were 
'^ allowed and sealed in view of the Courte with a Totall 
Approbation." Mr. Thomas Weston, a merchant of Lon- 
don, was one of the associates of John Peirce, a cloth- 
worker of London, and he went to Leyden (probably as 
soon as the indenture was granted and before it was sealed) 
to interest the Pilgrims, with whom he had formerly had 
dealings, in his patent. It was ordered by this court that 
" captains and leaders of plantations that shall go to Vir- 
ginia, till a form of government be here settled for them, 
may make orders, ordinances, etc., for the better directing 
of their servants and business, provided they be not repug- 
nant to the laios of England'^ The court issued an order 
to the governor in Virginia " to sett out 400 acres for 
Capt. Powle and Mr. John Smith." The court also consid- 
ered again the proposition relative to the farming of tobacco, 
and it was resolved that " they could not yield to anything 
which might infringe their patent." They also considered 
at length the business relative to the 100 children from 
London ; after the receipt of their letter the city yielded. A 
letter from an unknown person, signed " Dust and Ashes," 
to Sir Edwin Sandys, was read ; " for the converting of the 
infidels to the faith of Christ he promised £500 for main- 
taining of a convenient number of young Indians, taken at 
the age of seven years or younger, and instructed in read- 
ing and understanding the principles of Christian religion 
unto the age of twelve years, and then as occasion serveth, 
to be trained and brought up in some lawful trade with all 
humanity and gentleness unto the age of twenty-one years, 
and then to enjoy like liberties and privileges with our 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 355 

native English in that place} And for the better per- 
formance thereof he promised £50 more, which should be 
delivered into the hands of two religious persons with cer- 
titude of j)ayment, who shall once every quarter examine 
and certify to the Treasurer in England, the due operation 
of these premises, together with the names of those children 
thus taken, their foster-fathers and overseers." The court 
appointed a special committee for managing the said .£500, 
and they certified to the court of February 26 that they 
had " met and taken into consideration the proposition of 
Sir John Wolstenholme that John Peirce and his associates 
[the Pilgrims] might have the training and bringing up 
of some of those children ; but the committee, for divers 
reasons, thought it inconvenient — first, because they in- 
tend not to go these two or three months, and then, after 
their arrival, will be long in settling themselves, as also 
that the Indians are not acquainted with them." It was 
thought best to put them in the hands of plantations 
already settled there, as Smythe's Hundred, Martin's Hun- 
dred, Berkeley Hundred, and the like. Whereupon " Sir 
Thomas Roe promised that Berkeley Hundred would take 
two or three, and Mr. John Smyth and himself to be re- 
sponsible to the company for their well bringing up ; " and 
Sir Edwin Sandys, in behalf of Smythe's Hundred, promised 
to take those of the whole number not appropriated before 
the following Sunday. He also acquainted the court that 
he had recently received letters from Virginia importing 
the welfare of the plantation, etc. These letters ^ had been 
sent from Virginia by the Diana. At this court Peter 
Arundell reassigned three shares to Sir Thomas Roe. 

At the court of March 3, the £550 (equal to $13,000) 
from " Dust and Ashes " was paid in new gold, and Dr. 
Winstone reported that the committee thought it best for 



* This man's ideas of human rights ^ Report of the General Assembly, 

were in advance of ours. We have documents in re the ship Treasurer, 

not yet granted equal rights to the as well as " these letters." 
natives. 



356 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Smytlie's Hundred to be wholly in charge of the managing 
thereof. At the same court Mr. Holloway presented the 
company with a balloting-box. William and Arthur Franke 
were allowed 200 acres for the transport of four men. John 
Holloway had one share given him for the present of the bal- 
loting-box. Sir Thomas Gates and Sir Nathaniel Rich were 
requested to confer with General Edward Cecil relative to 
sending some engineers to Virginia to erect fortifications 
there. It was determined to place six tenants on the glebe 
lands toward the support of ministers, and the Lord Bishop 
of London was to be solicited for the helping them with 
sufficient ministers. And the old indentures of land granted 
to particular societies were ordered under the seal again 
for the insertion of a new covenant, " for their maintenance 
of a sufficient minister, which being done, the country will 
be well planted therewith, which was well approved." 

The man-of-war of Flushing reached the Netherlands 
some time prior to February 8, 1620, on which day, Sir 
Dudley Carleton sent the papers he had received from Pory, 
in Virginia, to John Chamberlain, in England, asking him 
" to show them to Sir Dudley Digges and then return 
them ; and to let him know when there is a passage to Vir- 
ginia, for he has compassion of poor Pory being hunger- 
starved for news, and wished to send him some." The only 
report preserved of the proceedings in our first General 
Assembly is " endorsed by Carleton, Mr. Pory out of Vir- 
ginia." It was evidently sent to Carleton at this time. The 
official report to the company is probably lost with the rest 
of the official documents. Carleton's " Virginia Papers," 
received by the man-of-war of Flushing, probably reached 
London from the Hague about the same time that the 
Diana arrived from Virginia. 

According to Sir Nathaniel Rich's account, when Sir 
Edwin Sandys received the letters from Virginia telling 
him of the return of the Treasurer, with the deposition of 
her robbing the Spaniard in the West Indies, " notwith- 
standing previous agreement between the parties as to such 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 357 

depositions and other matters in the premises; notwith- 
standing " that in cases of this nature " where any of our 
Colony either in their going from or coming to England or 
going directly from Virginia commit any such offence as 
to spoyle or rob the subjects of any other Prince, our Let- 
ters Patents declare precisely what in that case is to be 
done : vizt that upon complaynt of any such Prince so 
offended the King will cause Proclamation of restitution 
wdthin a certain time which if it be not done he will put 
the party out of his Protection : From hence it is apparent 
that we were not tyed to complain against our own coun- 
try-men. . . . Though he knew in the passages of the for- 
mer complaint which was only grounded upon rumor, how 
perplexed both my Lord of Warwick and his friends were at 
it, and what pains they took to prevent the ill consequences 
of it. Now as soon as Sir Edwin Sandys was informed 
that, that which they so much feared was come to pass, 
without acquainting my Lord of Warwick either before or 
after, he assembled the Counsell of Virginia, read the let- 
ter and deposition, and persuaded them to acquaint the 
Spanish Agent, and the English [Privy] Council with the 
matter, and so put upon my Lord of Warwick suddenly 
e'er he was aware, a confiscation of his ship and goods, 
and to throw him into such further extremities as the ill 
consequences of such a business might produce. And it is 
well known how dangerous they are for if that which my 
Lord had been accused of could have been proved — and 
what would not men of that sort swear to put off a business 
from themselves to another whom they think more able to 
bear it — he had not only been in the mercy of our own 
King, but must have been brought under the clutches of 
the King of Spain which perhaps would not have been 
removed till he had erusht him to peices : for God deliver 
me from the clemency of the Spaniard and from them that 
would inform for him." Rich may have had the fate of 
Sir Walter Ralegh in mind. The Virginia Council ac- 
quainted the Privy Council with the matter, by which time 



358 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the Earl of Warwick and his friends knew of it, and they 
so arranged that the Council table was satisfied about it by 
Lord Digby. " Then at the suggestion of Sandys, Sir John 
Dan vers and Dr. Winston were sent to the Spanish Agent 
to disclaim the business. Sir Edwin Sandys was forewarned 
of the danger of this, and yet whereas they should have 
gone to one only, they delivered the message to both 
Agents (Julian Sanchez de UUoa and Fray Diego de Lafu- 
ente), and upon return of their errant there was some hot 
disputation in the Court about it." Rich says " when the 
Lords of the Privy Council wished Sandys to be wary in 
his report, he in open court said 'that now the business 
must lie wholy upon Elfred who was and is, and intends to 
continue Pyrate accurst, and at ye same time told ye Coun- 
cell that if he were hanged for his labor, were no matter.' " 
The case was finally adjusted, and, on March 7, the follow- 
ing entry was made in the Privy Council register. " This 
day Sir Edwin Sandys Governor and others of the Virginia 
Company represented unto this Board — That whereas a 
shipp called The Treasurer sent out to the West Indies at 
such tyme as Captaine Argall was Governor of Virginia, 
and had committed offences against the Spaniards, and that 
by publique Letters from that colonic that act was by them 
disavowed. So likewise the Councill and Companie of Vir- 
ginia here joined in the letter disclayming of the same of 
which their especiall care to give unto his Majesties friends 
and allies no offence their letters gave good allowance and 
approbation. It appeared also by the letters produced at 
the Board, that the Spanish Agent here residing hath re- 
ceived satisfaction for the offence aforesaid." This case 
marks the beginning of the estrangement between the par- 
ties of the Earl of Warwick and Sandys. There is a good 
deal remaining about it. The impression made on my mind 
is that Sandys wished to smooth it over in the best manner 
for Virginia, and for all parties interested, save, probably, 
for Argall and Elfrith ; but the earl did not wish any part 
of the transaction brought before the Privy Council ; and 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 359 

he is said to have attempted to deter Sandys from doing 
this " even by threats of blood." 

Within less than a week after the matter of the Trea- 
surer in Virginia had been quieted, the Garland arrived 
from the Somers Islands with numerous letters. The gov- 
ernor, Nathaniel Butler, sent two to Sir Nathaniel Rich and 
one each to the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Southampton, 
and the governor (Sir Thomas Smythe) and company of the 
Somers Islands ; Miles Kendall wrote to Sir Nathaniel Rich 
and Sir Edwin Sandys ; John Salmon to Thomas Grims- 
ditch, and John Button to the Earl of Warwick. All of 
these letters mentioned the Treasurer as then being in the 
Somers Islands ; but the matter was not reported to the 
Privy Council, or to the Spanish agent, by Sir Thomas 
Smythe, the governor of the Somers Islands Company. 

When the new governor, Butler, arrived on the island 
(October 30), he found most of the negroes which had 
been brought in by the Treasurer (which came in not long 
before him) already received by " Mr. Rich's deputy, from 
Captain JElford, and Thomas Foster, as belonging to the 
Earl of Warwick ; " but knowing that the ship had been 
in question before he left England, he branded this " as 
an act of unworthy bouldness in Capt Argall, to use the 
Earl's name as a boulster to his unwarrantable actions. 
And so the people of her were all disposed of for the year 
to the use of the company 'till it could be truly known to 
whom the right lyeth." The fourteen negroes which had 
been given the former governor, Kendall, were claimed as 
havmg been left either by " a Dutch man-of-war," or by a 
Captain Kirby, and to this Butler gave way until he could 
hear from the company. These things were done in order 
to protect the Earl of Warwick, for " iElfred and the purser 
showed the ship's book of accounts " to Butler, by which "he 
saw plainly how the earl was really engaged in the business." 
He also reported that the Treasurer was " rotten," and 
that the earl's other ship, the Warwick, had been wrecked, 
all of which may have been a part of the same subterfuge. 



360 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Coming events cast their shadows before," and this"^voy- 
age of the Treasurer, which probably marks the introduc- 
tion of negro slaves into this country, certainly caused a 
commotion then, not only in Virginia and the Bermudas, 
but also in England, Spain, and the Netherlands. 

March 12, at the Virginia court, Thomas Howard, Earl 
of Arundell, was admitted into the company, and it was pro- 
posed to elect him to the Council at the next quarter court. 
Sir Thomas Gates passed five shares to Mr. Samuel Wrote, 
and Mr. Humphrey Reynolds five shares to Mr. Humphrey 
Slany. 

The southern colony from time to time, since 1610, had 
been making fishing voyages to the northward, without any 
protest from the northern colony ; but under Sandys the 
southern company began to license such voyages, thus im- 
plying some right to those fisheries, and the northern com- 
pany regarded this act with disfavor. Although these 
fisheries were in the latitudes of North Virginia, that com- 
pany had up to this time failed to secure by plantation a 
title of their own, under the charter of 1606, to any defi- 
nite bounds. Therefore, in order to remove the cloud from 
their claim. Gorges and others resolved to petition for a 
new charter, which would make their title clear, by grant- 
ing to them outright and unconditionally the definite 
bounds " from 40° to 45° of northerly latitude and so 
from Sea to Sea," etc. The case was managed with much 
skill from the beginning. Gorges says : " Of this, my 
resolution, I was bold to offer the sounder considerations 
to divers of his Majesty's honorable Privy Council, who had 
so good liking thereunto as they willingly became inter- 
ested themselves therein as patentees and Councillors for 
the managing of the business, by whose favors I had the 
easier passage in the obtaining his Majesty's royal charter." 
The petition for this charter was presented to the Privy 
Council on March 13, 1620 ; they ask that their plantation 
may be called New England (as it had been named by 
Prince Charles) in their charter. It was referred by the 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 361 

Council to the Duke of Lenox (Ludovic Stuart) and the 
Earl of Arundell for their opinions. 

Members of the patriot party state that this move was in 
continuation of the increasing political opposition of the 
court party to the advance proceedings in the Virginia 
courts of their party. Wodenoth says that " Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges then governor of Plymouth and of the Court 
party by a new patent divided the plantation of New 
England [North Virginia] from the first undertaking 
[South Virginia] and [thereby] had greater compliance 
with the King and Court interest the more to divide the 
strength and weaken the power of the Councell and Com- 
pany of Virginia [the patriot administration] residing in 
and about London. Which neverthelesse the wisdom of 
God hath made in these dayes [about 1645] to appear a 
blessinge upon that undertaking." 

Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, returned to London 
on March 18. The George arrived from Virginia about 
the 23d, and Sir Henry Mainwaring wrote to Lord Zouch 
that " some of the Virginia tobacco had been seized be- 
cause landed by night." 

March 25, the Virginia court met, and Sir Edwin Sandys 
read some of the letters from Virginia, and informed the 
court of one Mr. King who was to go with fifty persons to 
Virginia, to set on foot iron-works. This court began the 
consideration of " The Actes of ye generall assembly in 
Virginia" of August, 1619, as well as three other things 
of main consequence. "1. To draught a charter of orders 
for the better preserving and nourishing of the emigrants, 
and preventing so great mortality among them. 2. For 
the care of the ship and goods, recently returned, and to 
dispose of them for their best advantage. 3. Of differ- 
ences betwixt the Northern and Southern colonies." Sir 
Thomas Gates passed one share to Edward Palavicine. 

The Earl of Arundell had previously informed Sandys of 
the petition for the New England charter, and as he " under- 
stood of some differences between the companies about 



362 UNDER THE COMPANY 

fishing," he desired Sandys to call the Council of the Vir- 
ginia Company in regard to the matter, and this council 
now appointed Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Danvers, Mr. 
Edward Herbert, and Mr. Keightley a committee to manage 
the case. On March 26, they appeared before the Duke 
of Lenox and the Earl of Arundell, and there met " for 
the other side Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others, where 
disputing the matter before their Lordships they pleased 
neither to allow nor disallow entirely the one party or the 
other, but set down and ordered as seemed fittest to their 
Lordships." The special committee reported the result of 
the above meeting to the regular committee of the Virginia 
Company at a meeting held at Sir Thomas Smythe's house 
on March 28, and the secretary of the company was ap- 
pointed to repair to Sir Clement Edmonds for a copy of 
the decision of their lordships. Sir Edwin Sandys, also, 
told the committee that Sir George Yeardley desired to 
have a navigation set up for the good of the colony, and 
nominated unto them as a fit man to conduct it one Mar- 
maduke Rayner, who was well known to Sir Thomas Roe. 
(Rayner was the pilot of the man-of-war of Flushing, which 
came to Virginia in consort with the Treasurer. He had 
recently returned to Holland and had now probably reached 
England.) At this meeting Mr. Thomas Gibbs passed two 
shares to his two sons, Edmond and Thomas. Captain Bar- 
grave passed two shares to Robert Briggs. Mr. Aliano 
Lupo was admitted for one share, and for three men more 
which he sent, one and a half shares (total, two and a half 
shares). Thomas Hodges passed three shares to Walter 
Eldred by vdll. The land of Henry Davies was allowed to 
Susan Hamond. 

Sir Edwin Sandys had prepared a letter to be sent to 
Virginia with reference to Argall's case, which was read 
to a portion of the Virginia Council on March 25. The 
Council, having heard the general letter from Sir George 
Yeardley, had the whole (or certain parts of it) read pub- 
licly at the Virginia court on March 30. The letter 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1G20 363 

complained of sundry grievances done by Captain Samuel 
Argal], which partly concurred with some of the twelve 
articles which had been exhibited against him. Argall had 
formerly given in his answers to four of these ; he now pre- 
sented answers to the rest. It was determined to submit 
the case to four of the Virginia Council, — two for each 
side. Argall named Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, Mr. Recorder Heath, and Mr. Maurice Abbott, 
of which the company excepted against Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges and Sir Nathaniel Rich. The company named Sir 
John Danvers, Mr. Brooke, Mr. Gibbs, and Mr. Deputy 
Ferrar, of which Argall excepted against Mr. Brooke and 
Mr. Deputy. It is not possible to follow this case fairly. 
It was considered at many courts until Argall sailed on the 
expedition to Algiers in October, 1620, and for more than 
a year after his return in 1621 ; but it seems that nothing 
came of it. 

The London Merchant, of 300 tons, with 200 persons, 
and the Swan, of Barnstable, of 100 tons, with 71 persons, 
sailed for Virginia in March. Captain George Thorpe 
sailed on the first-named ship. 

John King, Bishop of London, delivered a sermon at 
Paul's Cross on behalf of Paul's Church, April 5 (N. S.), in 
which he mentioned, " Your English Colonic in Virginia (I 
named her the little sister that had no breasts) hath drawn 
from the breasts of this city and Diocesse a thousand 
pounds [equal to $22,000] towards her church." 

On April 10, Sir Ferdinando Gorges was one of the arbi- 
trators chosen by the Earl of Warwick, in settling the dif- 
ferences between the said earl and the East India Company, 
regarding the taking of the Lion, Captain Thomas Jones 
(a ship belonging to the earl), in the East Indies. 

At the Virginia court, on April 13, Sir Edwin Sandys 
said that " Sir George Yeardley had expressed a desire to 
have for his better directions the laws for government 
and magistracy, and Sandys requested the court, that as all 
the ships were gone and other business settled, they would 



364 UNDER THE COMPANY 

grant him so much Hberty for his refreshing as to retire 
himself for three or four weeks into the country, in which 
time he would spend his studies in collecting and framing 
such laws as may agree so near as may be to the laws of 
this realm and his Majesty's instructions." 

The Lady De la Warr passed twenty-five shares to 
Anthony Browne. 

April 17, James I. appointed commissioners for garbling 
tobacco, the same as other drugs. 

April 18, " at the Virginia Court intelligence was given 
that M'" Nicholas Ferrar the elder, being translated from this 
life into a better, had by his will bequeathed £300 towards 
the converting of infidel's children in Virginia," etc. Mr. 
Treasurer found the Acts of the General Assembly of Vir- 
ginia in their greatest part to be very well and judiciously 
carried ; but as they were to be ratified by a quarter court, 
the following committee was appointed " to draw them into 
head and to ripen the business that it might be in a 
readiness against the said court : " Sir John Danvers, Mr. 
Thomas Gibbs, Mr. Deputy Ferrar, and Mr. Brooke, of the 
Council, and Sir Thomas Wroth, Mr. Samuel Wrote, Mr. 
Berblock, and Mr. Cranmer, of the generality. And they 
were to meet as often as they pleased. 

The Bona Venture, of 240 tons, with 153 persons, left 
England May 20 ; and early in the same month the Mar- 
garet returned from Virginia with letters from Yeardley to 
Sir William Throckmorton, from Dermer to Rev. Samuel 
Purchas, etc. 

May 17, Sir William Throckmorton assigned his share 
(one fourth part.) in Berkeley Hundred to William Tracy. 

May 21, Sir Edwin Sandys reported to the court that 
owing to the long delay in getting the Bona Venture off, 
which had just sailed, he had not been able to do any- 
thing to the laws. Captain Bargrave passed one share to 
Elias Foxton, Sir Thomas Gates passed two shares to Ed- 
mond Hackett, one to Sir Edw. Lawly, five to Sir Walter 
Earle, one to Edward Clarke, and five to Christopher Earle. 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 365 

Sir Henry Raiiisford, Mr. Edward Herbert, and Mr. Bam- 
ford were added to the committee on the Acts of the Gen- 
eral Assembly ; and at the next court they were given 
until the quarter court in Trinity term to make their re- 
port. The order made by the Duke of Lenox and Earl of 
Arundell on March 26, gave satisfaction to neither the 
North or South Virginia Company, and it was now agreed 
by the Virginia court that a counter petition should " be 
exhibited to his Majesty from this Company — not to debar 
them from the immunities his Majesty hath freely granted 
them for matter of fishing." 

May 25, a preparative court, as at most of the courts, 
had some question about tobacco before it. " In order to 
annihilate the intolerable fees granted by the Governor and 
Council of State in Virginia to John Pory the Secretary 
it was aofreed in Heu thereof to have 500 acres allotted for 
him and his successors and to place 20 tenants thereon." 

The Earl of Dorset passed ten shares to Mr. Henry 
Mainwaring ; Captain Bargrave one each to John Thorn- 
bury, John Collet, gent., Thomas Collet, gent., Thomas 
Masterson, Captain Law. Masterson, and Augustine Lin- 
sell ; Thomas Melling one share to John Cuff ; Thomas 
Harris one to Thomas Combe, and Captain George Percy 
assigned four shares in Virginia to Christopher Martin. 

The Easter term quarter court met on May 27, with 
over 150 in attendance. The following old indentures of 
land were passed under the seal again, after having a new 
covenant inserted for their maintenance of a minister : 
"1. The Society of Smyth's Hundred — which at a meeting 
amongst themselves (as Sir Thomas Smythe had agreed to 
part with his interest therein) had altered the name to 
Southampton Hundred. 2. Capt John Bargrave and his 
associates. 3. Capt. John V/ard and his associates. 4. John 
Poyntz [Pountis] Esq, and his associates ; and 5. John 
Berkeley Esqr. and his associates." 

The Earl of Arundell, the Earl of Devonshire, and Lord 
Danvers were added to his Majesty's Council for the com- 



366 UNDER THE COMPANY 

pany. Sir William Cockayne, lord mayor, and Rev. John 
King, lord bishop of London, were admitted into the com- 
pany. William Barrett, gent., passed a share to Sir Henry 
Crofts, and Mr. Abraham Cartwright a share to Mr. Cha- 
loner. 

Mr, Treasurer Sandys then made a report of what had 
been done under his administration, a large part of which 
was soon after published as a broadside, under the heading : 
'' A Note of the Shipping, Men and Provisions sent to 
Virginia by The Treasurer and Company in the Yeare, 
1619." Which was also included in " A booke called a 
Declaration of the state of the Colony and affairs in Vir- 
ginia, with the names of the Adventurers, and Somes ad- 
ventured in that action," entered for pubhcation at Sta- 
tioners' Hall, July l{, 1620. This court also signed and 
sealed the Charter of Orders, etc., which had been sent to 
Virginia by the Bona Venture, and this, also, was soon after 
pubHshed as a broadside. 

The Easter term was the regular court for choosing the 
treasurer of the company for the following year, and the 
king (through his messengers, Mr. Robert Kirkham, one 
of the clerks of the signet, and Mr. Alderman Hammers- 
ley) requested the company to make choice of one of the 
following four : Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Thomas Roe, Mr. 
Alderman Johnson, or Mr. Maurice Abbot, and no other. 
The company decided that " if they should proceed accord- 
ing to the limits of that message, they would suffer a great 
breach unto their privilege of free election granted by his 
Majesty's letters-patents, which they had rather lay down 
than to be deprived of that privilege." They deferred the 
election to the next Quarter Court, and " as it manifestly 
appeared that his Majesty had been much misinformed of 
the managing of their business this last year," a committee 
was appointed " to draft an humble answer to his Majesty's 
message, and to deliver to him a true information, as well 
of the former as of this latter year's business, beseeching 
also that his Majesty would be pleased not to take from 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 367 

them the privilege of their letters-patents, but that it might 
be m their oion cJioice to have free election J* 

May 29, the Earl of Southampton, Viscount Doncaster, 
Lord Cavendish, Lord Sheffield, Sir John Danvers, Sir 
Nicholas Tufton, Sir Lawrence Hide, Mr. Christopher 
Brooke, Mr. Edward Herbert, Mr. Thomas Gibbs, Mr. 
Thomas Keightley and Mr. William Cranmer met at South- 
ampton House and drafted the answer which they after- 
wards presented ; but notwithstanding all their argument 
James I. " remained obstinately excepting against the per- 
son of Sir Edwin Sandys, declaring him to be his greatest 
enemy, and that he could hardly think well of whomsoever 
was his friend, and all this in a furious passion, returning 
the committee no other answer but choose the Demi if you 
will hut not Sir Edwin Sandys^ 

At a private meeting of the Virginia Council in June, 
the committee recounted their experience with the king 
just as it happened, but it was deemed advisable to make a 
varnished report to the next quarter court (July 8). Thus 
even the authentic records of the company reveal the royal 
influence. 

On June 2, Sir Henry Mainwaring passed five shares to 
Sir Edward Sackville, and Anthony Irby two shares to Sir 
Nicholas Tufton. 

Sir Thomas Smythe was again chosen governor of the 
Somers Islands Company at their court on June 3, at which 
tune Sir Edwin Sandys attempted to make a speech, but 
was stopped by the court. He stated this fact at the Vir- 
ginia court on June 10, and said that " he had intended 
to protest against the making another Algiers of those 
islands, which were now so much frequented by Dutch- 
men-of-war and pirates, even a minister [Mr. Lang] there 
justifying the robbing of the Spaniard as being limb of 
Antichrist." And, therefore, being a business of state, at 
his suggestion committees were appointed by the Virginia 
Company, one " to see Sir Thomas Smythe, the governor of 
that company, and have him acquaint his Majesty's Privy 



368 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Council therewith ; and another to repair unto the Lords 
[Privy Council] at such time as they know of Sir Thomas 
Smith's resolution." Thus the Privy Council were to be 
informed either with Smythe's consent or without it. In 
the general letter from the Somers Islands Company to Gov- 
ernor Nathaniel Butler, they write, " we are here accused 
and charged by the state to be accessory to Pyracye." They 
warn them against Captain Powell and others like him, and 
order " all the negroes left there by Capt. Argall's ship and 
the other pinnace, to be delivered to the Earl of Warwick's 
oJBficers, and the marriners of the Treasurer to be sent 
home." 

On June 10, Sir Thomas Gates passed three shares to 
Sir Henry Rainsford, and three to Edward Morgan ; Lady 
De la Warr passed one share to William Waller. 

June 17, Sir Edwin Sandys wrote to the Marquis of 
Buckingham : " I understand, by the late boasting of Sir 
Thomas Smith and his partizans of their sedulous endea- 
vour, by a cloud of untruths, to make a fresh interposition 
between the most joyful light of his Majesties favor, and 
the darkness wherewith myself and my service rest yet 
obscured." He goes on to defend his course against Sir 
Thomas Smythe and his party ; compares what he had done 
with what Smythe had done in the Virginia business ; is 
wdlling to retain the place of treasurer for another year ; 
asks Buckingham to repatriate the long exiled in his 
Majesty's favor, and expresses a loyal heart to his Majesty 
and to Virginia. 

The Pilgrims had been for some time coming to an agree- 
ment with Mr. Weston, Mr. Pierce, and others, about going 
to Virginia, and they were now making final arrangements, 
all of which have been fully described by the historians of 
New England, and therefore I have not repeated them. 

At the Virginia court, July 3, Sir Edwin Sandys reported 
that the Bona Nova had returned from Virginia with very 
good news ; that the plantation enjoyed peace, health, and 
plenty. He also told the court that Dr. Winston and him- 



ENGLAND, MAY 8, 1619 — JULY 8, 1620 369 

self had found it very difficult to collect all the adven- 
turers' names from the beginning to be put in print. This 
is the list already mentioned in the reference to " A Decla- 
ration of the State of Virginia." ^ 

At this court Sir Thomas Gates transferred 34 shares : 
14 to Sir Philip Carew (Gary), 5 to Mr. Francis Ghaloner, 3 
to Mr. Henry Box, 2 to Mr. Tho. Vyner, 2 to Mr. William 
Swayne, 1 to Mr. Arthur Swayne, 1 to Mr. Thomas Swayne, 
1 to Mr. Anthony Biddolph, 1 to Mr. George Clarke, 1 
to Mr. William Watson, 1 to Mr. Richard Greenway, 1 to 
Mr. John Lawrence, and 1 to Mr. Thomas Stubbins. Mr. 
John Halsey transferred four shares, one each to Mr. Rich- 
ard Lambe, Mr. John Lambe, Mr. John Budge, and Mr. 
Thomas Witherall. Captain Bargrave passed one share 
to Mr. Philip Jermyne. Lord De la Warre passed five 
shares to the Earl of Southampton. David Bennett was 
admitted for three shares. The Earl of Southampton 
passed five personal shares : 2 to Mr. Thomas Riseley, 1 to 
Mr. Porter, 1 to Mr. Philip Gilford, and 1 to William 
Smith. Mr. Harper passed one share to Mr. Whitcombe. 
Sir Francis Pavington passed one share to William Pollard 
and one to Henry Hickford, and Henry HicMord passed 
one share to John Martin. 

The king's opposition to Sandys had caused anxiety, but 
at the preparative court, July 6, the Earl of Southampton 
consented to serve as treasurer, and this raised the spirits 
of the patriots. 

The term of Sir Edwin Sandys as treasurer expired with 
the election of the Earl of Southampton at the Trinity 
quarter court, July 8 ; but he continued to have much to 
do with the management of the enterprise. 

The minute particulars increase the length of the narra- 
tive ; but in order to understand this formative movement 
fully, it is of real historic importance to give the details 
whenever this can be done with an assurance of their 
accuracy. 

^ It is reprinted in Force's Collections of Historical Tracts, vol. iii. no. 5. 



II 

VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619 — NOVEMBER 28, 1620 
SIB GEORGE YEABDLEY, GOVERNOR 

The Bona Nova, John Johnson, master, stopped while on 
her way to Virginia at "the Savage Islands," in the West 
Indies (probably the Bahamas, one of the resorts for pirates, 
and to which the Treasurer sailed from the Bermudas). 
While there Captain Kirby went on board, and afterwards 
told Captain John Powell that " if he had known so many 
of her men had been ashore and so few aboard, he would 
have carried her away without fail." She reached Virginia 
December 4, 1619, with 50 tenants for the college lands 
and 50 for the company's land, all in health. She also 
brought " a communion cup v/ith the cover and case. A 
plate for the bread of silver guilt. A carpet of crimson 
Velvet with a gold lace and fringe ; and a linen damask 
Table-cloath, all valued at £30, which a person unknown 
had given for the use of the Colledge." ^ 

The Margaret, of Bristol, which sailed from " King- 
rood," England, September 26, made land on December 8, 
and " landed in a good harbour at Keeketan," in Virginia, 

^ At the court held at James City, " 3. One white clamaske Commu- 

February 19, 1628, Temperance, Lady nion Cloath with buttons. 

Yeardley (her husband. Sir George "4. Fewer divinity bookes with 

Yeardley, in whose charge they had brasse bosses." These were presented 

been, was buried November 23, 1627), to the company in November, 1620, 

delivered up the following "guiftes and were sent to the colony at some 

formerly sent out of England and time thereafter. One was a treatise 

given to ye use of ye College, viz. : of St. Augustine of the City of God 

"1. Communion Silver Guilt Cupp translated into English; the other three 

& two little chalices in a cloth of gold great volumes were the works of Rev. 

cover. William Perkins (1558-1602), a Cal- 

" 2. One Crimson Velvet Carpet vinist divine, " newlie corrected and 

with a gold & silver fringe. amended." 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619 — NOVEMBER 28, 1620 371 

on December 10. Four days thereafter the captain received 
the followino^ certificate : — 

"To THE Treasurer Counsell and Company of Ad- 
venturers AND Planters of the City of London 

FOR THE FIRST CoLONY IN VIRGINIA : 

" Theis are to certify That in the good ship of Bristol 
called The Margaret this present iiij*'' [4:th, 0. S.] day of 
December 1619, arry ved in this port of James City for plan- 
tation here in Virginia at the charges of Sir William Throk- 
morton Knight and Baronet, Richard Berkley, George 
Thorpe and John Smyth Esquiers, under the conduct of 
John Woodleefe Esq'", theis thirty and five persons all in 
safety and perfect health whose names ensue. 

" Toby Felgate gent [pilot], Ferdinando Yate, gent, [who 
wrote an account of the voyage], John Blanchard gent, 
Henry Pearse gent, Richard Godfry, Thomas Cooper [or 
Coopy], Rowland Painter, John Cole, Humphry Osborne, 
Humphry Plant, Thomas Davis, Christopher Nelme, Samuel 
Cooper, William Cole, Thomas Pearse, Thomas Denton, 
Christopher Burton, William Parker, John Hurd, William 
Patche, Thomas Patche, Thomas Sanford, William Stone, 
John Jones, Richard Sherife the elder, Richard Sherife the 
yonger, Edward Paynter, Charles Coyse, James Clay, Wil- 
liam Clement, Stephen Torphet, Thomas Molton, John 
Taylor, Walter Hampton, Thomas Thorpe — 35. 
" This certificate I affirme to be true. 

" Charles City, December. " GeORGE YaRDLEY. 

I4ti> 1619 " John Porey, secretary." 

These were the first settlers of the town and hundred of 
Berkeley ^ on James River (the landing-place for this plan- 
tation is now known as Harrison's Landing) under the 
management of Captain Woodhffe, with regular ordinances, 

1 See Bulletin of the New York Papers, 1613-1674, relative to this 
Public Library for March and Jnly, plantation. 
1897, for reference to Smyth of Nibley 



372 UNDER THE COMPANY 

directions, and instructions from the four associates afore- 
said, for the managing the business. They also sent a 
letter to the governor offering him a share in their venture, 
and one from Sir Edwin Sandys, of which the following is 
a copy : — 

" To MY HONORABLE FREND S" GeORGE YaRDLEY, 

Knight, governor of Virginia. Sr : — I comend unto 
your good favor and care the begininge plantation of Sr. 
William Throkmorton and Mr George Thorpe (who is of 
the Counsell) with other gent their associates, who send to 
you by this ship fifty persons to that end. Their desire 
is that they may be well placed and have such other assist- 
ance as their case shall need, and your place with your 
experience can best afforde. You shall hereby much bind 
them in love to you and make me also beholden to you for 
their sakes. Soe with hartieth comendations I rest. 

" Your assured lovinge frend Edwine Sandys." 

"London, 3. August. 1619." 

In compliance with these requests the governor located 
the plantation in a very good and convenient place on 
James River, which still retains the name of " Berkeley." 

Captain Ward went to trade with Japazus, king of the 
Potomacs, in the fall ; but " the people there, are said, to 
have dealt falsely with him, so that he took 800 bushels of 
corne per force " and returned to Jamestown in December. 

The George left Virginia early in January, 1620, with 
a letter from Captain Thomas Dermer, written at Captain 
Martyn's plantation, on January 6, to Rev. Samuel Pur- 
chas, telling of his voyage to North Virginia and thence 
to South Virginia, etc. Also with letters from Governor 
Yeardley to the Council for Virginia in England ; telling 
them " of the great mortallitie which hath been in Virginia, 
about 300 of ye inhabitants having dyed this last year ; 
but for ye people sent in the Bona Nova they are aryved in 
health, are all living and prosper well applying themselves 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619— NOVEMBER 28, 1620 373 

with the rest according to direction to the building of the 
houses, tilHng of the ground, planting silkgrass, etc ; 
wished a navigation set up for the good of the Colony, and 
recommends Marmaduke Rayner [the pilot of the man-of- 
war of Flushing] to be placed in charge of it," etc. Cap- 
tain Roger Smith and Captain Maddison went to England 
in this ship to make complaints against the governor. 

Governor Yeardley wi'ote from Jamestown, on January 
20, 1620, to John Smith of Nibley : — 

" Right Woeshipfull — Yours from BristoU dated 
Septemb; 9, 1619, I have received from Captaine John 
Woodleef, whom accordinge to your desire, I have planted 
in a very good and convenient place. Against which act of 
mine it may be, Captaine Francis West brother to ye late 
right honorable my Lord La Warre (according to some false 
information from hence) will there in England take some 
exception, as if I had seated your people upon parte of that 
land which he the last summer designed for the right hon- 
orable my Lo la Warre now livinge. Which if he do you 
may upon mine affirmation boldly -reply that Mr. West is 
misinformed, and that ye land I have made choyse of for 
you lies above [Westover] that which he had appointed 
for my Lord, more towards West and Sherley hundred and 
towardes Charles Citty, and also that he had not before his 
departure obtained any grante from me of that which he 
did lay out. 

" For joyning with you presently in Adventure, though 
I give you many thanks for your favor, in admitting me 
one of your Society, and would as gladly partake with you 
as with any so well in ye Company, yet such now is partly 
my publique employment, and partly my engagement to 
bring out of England at my own chardge 25 men this 
yeare to furnish Smyth hundred, as I must beseech you to 
excuse me. If I cannot at this time make use of that speciall 
favor of yours. Hereafter it may be, when God shall give 
me abihty and ley sure, I shalbe more forward to accept 



374 UNDER THE COMPANY 

your Curtesy. In ye meane while you shall find me as 
ready for your sakes to assist Captaine Woodleefe at all 
assayes, as if mine adventure were allready in your Cashe. 

" So wishinge you all and your people here in Virginia 
ye happines of a newe Yeare, I rest 

" Yours verie ready to doe you service 

" George Yeardley." 

" James Citty 
Jan. 10th 1619." 

The account of the voyage, from 26th September to 10th 
December, 1619, written by Ferdinando Yate to George 
Thorpe of Wanswell, and John Smith of Nibley, is pre- 
faced with the statement that they were then following 
their " daiely husbandtrie — sum to clering ground for 
corn and tobacko, sum to building houses, sum to plant 
vines and mulberie trees," etc. " This honorable attempt 
of planting in this cuntrie which I make noe doubt with 
god's assistance, wilbe a benifit to yourselves and posteri- 
tie ; a good to the Commonwelth of England ; and in 
time, a meanes to convert these poore faithles Indeans." 
It concludes with : " If I had the eloquence of Cesero or 
the skillfull art of Apellese I could not pen neither paint 
out a better praise of the Cuntrie then the cuntrie itselfe 
deserveth." 

Yeardley's letter and this account of the voyage were 
sent by the Margaret, which sailed within a few days. 
This ship also carried other letters to the four founders of 
Berkeley in England, some of which caused them to become 
dissatisfied with the governor of their plantation (Wood- 
lilfe), whom they thought was not observing their direc- 
tions, and was sending them false news ; as they express it, 
" was guilty of the old Virginian trick of surjDrise of lettres." 

January 29, 1620, Richard Birchett, an old planter, sold 
his share of land to Thomas Bouldin of Elizabeth City. 

March 2, William Bailey was granted his share of land 
in Hog Island. 

March 8, John Laydon, an ancient planter, was granted 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619 — NOVEMBER 28, 1620 375 

one hundred acres of land in the island of Henrico, by 
Governor Yeardley. About the same time, Thomas Read 
was granted one hundred acres of land, situated in Coxen- 
dale, over against the island of Henricus, a part of which 
was called Mount My Lady (Mount Malady ?), for his 
eight years' service in Virginia. 

On August 14, 1619, the governor had prorogued the 
General Assembly till March 11, 1620, and I suppose that 
it met about that time, but the records have not been 
found. Beverley, in his history of Virginia, says that the 
first " General Assembly was held at Jamestown in May, 
1620, and that the Burgesses sat in the same house with 
the Governor and Council, after the manner of the Scotch 
Parliament." This may have had reference to the second 
meeting^. 

A census of the colony Avas taken, generally, just before 
the meeting of the General Assembly (possibly on the day 
of election). An account was kept by " the Secretary of 
Estate " of all arriving in the colony ; and by the minis- 
ters of all christenings, burials, and marriages, which were 
reported once a year, namely, in the month of March, in the 
beginning of which month, in 1620, there were by the cen- 
sus 887 persons in Virginia. 

Captain Thomas Dermer sailed in his bark from Virginia 
to the north early in the spring, and the Bona Nova sailed 
for England about the same time, " with the very good 
news, that the plantation enjoyed peace, health, and 
plenty." 

Cornells Jacobsen May, the Dutch sea-captain, was in 
the Chesapeake Bay in 1620, and probably about this time. 

The Duty, of seventy tons, John Dameron, master, sent 
expressly for his Majesty's service with fifty of those whom 
the king commanded Sir Edv/ard Zouch, knight marshal, to 
send to Virginia, arrived in May. The company had ex- 
pended .£100 for their appareling and furnishing, which 
was to be refunded by their masters in Virginia. They 
came to be known in Virginia as " the Duty Boys." 



376 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The Jonathan, of 350 tons, Captam Thompson, which 
left England with 200 persons, including many maids for 
wives, after a tedious passage in which above sixteen died, 
arrived in Virginia in May or June. Mrs. Christopher New- 
port, the widow of " Our Captaine," sent six men by this 
ship at her own charge, to be placed on her lands in Vir- 
ginia. The ship was engaged in the Newfoundland, or 
North Virginia, fishing business, as many others were 
which were now to be employed in bringing emigrants to 
Virginia. It cost the company about <£12 10s each to trans- 
port emigrants on specially employed ships ; but as these 
fishing ships had been going out nearly empty, they agreed 
to take the emigrants to Virginia at £6 each. They sailed 
thence to the northern fisheries, where they loaded with 
fish for England, or elsewhere. 

The London Merchant, of 300 tons, William Shawe, 
master, which left England with 200 persons, including 
Captain George Thorpe, "a gentleman of his Majesty's 
Privy Chamber, and one of his Council for Virginia, sent 
out as deputy for the college lands,^ who hath promised 
with all diligence to have exceeding care thereof," and 
some more maids for wives " for the making of the men 
feel at home in Virginia," arrived in June, and about the 
same time " the Triall, of 200 tons, Edmunds, master, which 
left England with forty persons and sixty kine." 

In 1620, Ensign Rossingham was sent by Governor 
Yeardley to Newfoundland to trade tobacco for fish, and 
made a profitable return to the governor. This was prob- 
ably the " small boat of fifty or sixty lasts, with six guns," 
that De Vries saw near Cape Race on August 4, " which 
had come out of the Virginias with tobacco, in order to 
exchange the tobacco for fish." 

The following ships arrived in August or September : 
the Falcon, of 150 tons, which left England with thirty- 
six persons, fifty-two kine, and four mares ; the Swan, of 

1 In lieu of wages to the deputy for 300 acres, with ten tenants, to be per- 
the college lauds, there was granted petually belonging to that place. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619— NOVEMBER 28, 1620 377 

Barnstable, of 100 tons, which left England with seventy- 
one persons, and the Francis Bona Venture, of 240 tons, 
which left England with 153 persons. This last ship 
brought " the Charter of orders for tlie better preserving 
and nourishing of the emigrants," etc. It expresses " the 
great grief in the Company over the mortality which this 
last year hath wrought upon the people, to the consump- 
tion of divers Hundreds, and almost the utter destructions 
of some particular Plantations. Which is attributed to the 
chastisement of God for the numerous sins of the Company 
and colonists, and urging the more carefuU observations of 
his holy laws to work a reconciliation." 

" Yet observing on the other side, that this mortality 
hath proceeded from a disease in itself not mortall, and 
accordingly hath most wrought upon the neio Plantations, 
who (contrary to our hopes and intended provisions) were 
destitute of those meanes, which should have relieved and 
cherished them in their sickness, of which the ancienter 
Inhabitants being provided, did recover : We therefore, 
according unto our place and Christian duty, taking into our 
carefuU considerations the redresse and prevention of these 
defects in all future times : That both the Colony may bet- 
ter attend the service of God, and that the people now sent, 
and which hereafter shall come, may be the better provided 
against that, and the like sicknesse, (seeing in the health 
of the People, consisteth the very life, strength, increase, 
and prosperity of the whole generall Colony) doe with 
mature deliberation and Unanime consent, ordaine, and 
establish as hereafter followeth : " 

" First, in each of the four ancient general Boroughs : 
— James City, Henrico, Charles City, and Kicowtan (which 
hereafter [in reply to the 6th petition of their General 
Assembly of August, 1619] shall be called Elizahetli City, 
by the name of his Majesties most vertuous and renowned 
Daughter) as also in each of the particular Plantations, a 
Gtiest-hou^Q [hospital] shall be built, for the lodging and 
entertaining of fifty persons in each, upon their first arrival. 



378 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Said houses to be raised in wholesome places, each shall be 
16 feet broad within, and 180 feet long (unless it seem 
good to divide that length into two houses), with 25 beds 
of four foot broad, six foot long, and two foot height from 
the ground in equal distance and with partitions of boards 
between ; Five conveniently placed chimnies for fire, and 
sufficient windows for wholesomness of air — And for the 
encouragement of these buildings the Company will give 
each Borough two Kine or Heifers. 

" For the service of God ; to prevent their own everlast- 
ing destruction, and to allure the Heathen people to submit 
themselves to the Scepter of God's most righteous and 
blessed Kingdome. Each of the four General Borough's 
was to have at least one Godly minister, to be appointed 
and maintained by the Company — as likewise the public 
land ; in every Borough each particular plantation was to 
maintain at least one minister at the expense thereof ; the 
Governor to provide a minister for his tenants and the Col- 
lesfe for theirs." " All which Ministers and their Succes- 
sors, we earnestly pray and require to apply themselves with 
all diligence to the training up of their charge in the way of 
righteousness, as the same is now professed, and by Laio 
established in this Church of England, and other his Maj- 
esties Doininio?is, avoiding all factions, and needlesse 
Novelties, tending onely to the disturbance of peace and 
unity r 

Each minister was to have furnished him six tenants for 
his 100 acres of glebe land. 

" And as the wealth, happiness and stability of each par- 
ticular Estate is founded upon the strength and prosperity 
of the publike, the Governor and Council with the whole 
body of the Colony were urged to be aiding and assisting 
in every way to the 600 persons now sent, and others 
hereafter to be sent, for publike use. 

" Lastly, as the planting of Tobacco, to the neglect of 
other more solid commodities, redounded to the great dis- 
grace of the Country and detriment of the Colony ; the 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619 — NOVEMBER 28, 1620 379 

company had endeavored to set up sundry real commodi- 
ties and thought fit to recommend others to them. First, 
Iron, being of most necessary use for the Colony, for the 
making whereof 150 persons (110 out of Warwickshit-e 
and Staffordshire and 40 out of Sussex, all framed to 
Iron Works), to set up three Iron works were sent, with 
all Materials and other provisions thereunto belonging. 
Second, Cordage, for which they commend the cultiva- 
tion of Silk-grass ; Thirdly, Pitch and Tarre, Pot-ashes and 
Sope-ashes ; Fourth, Timber of all sorts ; Fifth, Silk ; sixth 
Vines, and lastly Salt. The Governor was to take steps 
at once to renew the Salt-works formerly set up by Dale 
on Smith's Hand. Taking for the purpose 20 of the Com- 
pany's tenants, each of whom were to be allowed for their 
occupation or use, 50 acres of land within the same Hand, 
to be the Land of the Company." " The one moity of 
Salt, Fish and profits of the Land, shall be for the Ten- 
ants, and the other for us the Company, to be delivered 
into our Store : and this contract shall be to continue for 
five years." The boroughs and other plantations had the 
privilege of making salt, etc., " with the same divisions of 
profit between them and their landlords." 

All the forementioned commodities were desired to be 
set ujD with all care and diligence, and suggestions about 
the advancing of each were given. And it was earnestly 
desired that all parties interested should bend together their 
efforts in all ways for the advancing of the good of the 
colony in every way. 

Two ships with three hundred persons, sent out by par- 
ticular adventurers for private plantations, arrived in Vir- 
ginia probably in August or September ; I have not the 
details of these expeditions. 

Du.ring the summer a voyage was made by Mr. Marma- 
duke Rayner to the southward to Roanoke ; another \)j 
Ensign Thomas Savage " in the great bay, wherein is a 
relation of a great trade of furs by Frenchmen ; a third, 
by Capt Thomas Dermer from Cape Charles to Cape Cod, 



y 



380 UNDER THE COMPANY 

up Delaware and Hudson's river, being but 20 or 30 leagues 
from Virginia and within tbeir limits [as they supposed], 
within which rivers were found divers ships of Amsterdam 
and Home, who yearly had there a great and rich trade 
for furs." 

The relations of these three voyages were sent to the 
company in England. It seems that Dermer had previously 
(on July 10) written a relation, probably to Sir Ferdinand© 
Gorges, from North Virginia, telling him of the Hollanders 
in Hudson River. He was afterwards wounded in an 
affray with the savages ; went to Virginia to be cured of 
his wounds, where " he had the misfortune to fall sick and 
die of the infirmity many of our Nation are subject unto 
at their first comming into those parts." When he arrived 
in Virg-inia he moved " the Governor and Council of 
State there earnestly to solicit and invite the Company in 
England to undertake so certain and gainful a voyage as 
the Hudson river furr trade," and his suggestion was 
adopted. 

The Hudson River was in the bounds claimed for the 
crown of England under the Royal Charter of 1606 ; but 
it was not really in the bounds granted to the South Vir- 
ginia Company in either of their charters. The northern 
company had failed to secure by plantation their one hun- 
dred miles square of land, but they were now endeavoring 
to strengthen themselves by a new charter, including the 
royal claim north of the southern grant, which was soon 
after granted ; and this did include the Hudson River and 
points north of 40° north latitude. 

One or more ships left Virginia with the accounts of the 
safe arrival of nearly all those sent in the last spring, and 
also, without doubt, of the great mortality of the last sum- 
mer ; but for very good reasons this fact was not read out 
in the Virginia courts, nor is it found in those records. 
It was truly said in "the charter" recently received in Vir- 
ginia that " in the health of the People consisteth the very 
life of the Colony ; " and the great mortality in the colony 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1619 — NOVEMBER 28, 1620 381 

was the paramount difficulty, the real cause of the con- 
tinued charges and countercharges of mismanagement, the 
cause of misleading statements from the first and all sorts 
of subterfuges for concealing the facts, when really all 
known means, both under the administration of Sir Thomas 
Smythe and after, had been and were most earnestly re- 
sorted to for removing this trouble, but without avail, be- 
cause the only specific (quinine) was then unknown. No 
human being was to blame; and even if the managers did 
make errors, as all human beings do, their efforts were for 
the best according to the lights before them, and mortal 
man can do no more. Although Sir Edwin Sandys had 
sent this year " the meanes (which [he thought] should 
have been sent before) to relieve and cherish them in their 
weakenesse," according to his best behef and under the 
best medical knowledge of those days, the death rate, 
especially among the newcomers, had been greater during 
the last season than at any time in the history of the 
colony : of some 1200 sent about 1000 died en route or 
in Virginia. 

It might have been more interesting to some if I could 
have gone more into the details as to the first modes of 
treatment of the new diseases (contracted from the Indians, 
generated by the climate, etc.) of the new world ; but, as 
with so many other important matters in the premises, I 
have not adequate evidence to enable me to do so. There 
is, however, sufficient to show that these matters were 
under the proper management of the leading men of that 
day in matters of that kind, and that some of those who 
came to Virginia were men of distinction in the medical 
profession. Brief sketches of several of them are given in 
" The Genesis of the United States." 



Ill 

ENGLAND, TRINITY COURT, JULY 8, 1620 — EASTER COURT, 

MAY 12, 1621 

HENRY, EAEL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TREASURER; MR. JOHN 
FERRAR, DEPUTY-TREASURER 

There were two meetings of the quarter court on July 
8, one in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon. 
Lord Houghton, Sir Edward Sackville, Mr. Samuel Wrote, 
Mr. Thomas Keightley, Mr. Thomas Sheppard, Mr. Robert 
Smith, Dr. Winstone, Dr. Gulstone, the Earl of Dorset, 
the Earl of Huntington, and Mr. Doctor Anthony, were 
added to his Majesty's Council for the company in England. 
And Captain George Thorpe, Thomas Newce, William Tracy, 
John Pountis, David Middleton, Mr. Bluett, of the iron- 
works, and Mr. Horwood, the chief of Martin's Hundred, 
were added to the Council of State in Virginia. The three 
doctors now added to give their counsel to the company, 
with special reference to the sickness in Virginia, were 
amonof the most distino;:uished medical men of that dav. 
The auditors chosen were, for the company : Sir Edwin 
Sandys, Sir John Danvers, Mr. John Wroth, Mr. John 
Ferrar, Mr. Thomas Keightley, Mr. Henry Briggs (the cele- 
brated mathematician), and Mr. William Cranmer ; and for 
Sir Thomas Smythe : Mr. Maurice Abbott, Mr. Humfrey 
Hansford, and Mr. Anthony Abdy. The former secretary, 
Mr. Fotherby, was allowed to resign, and Mr. Edward Col- 
lingwood was elected to the place. Mr. William Webb 
was again elected husband, and Mr. Francis Carter, beadle. 
Mr. James Bagg had five shares given him. The daughter 
of the late Sir Ferdinando Wenman was allowed eight 
shares, — four for the £100 adventured by her father with 
Lord De la Warr and four for the adventure of her father's 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620— MAY 12, 1621 383 

person. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Wenman, 
of Thame Park, by his wife, Jane West ; matriculated at 
Oxford, 8th December, 1587, aged twelve; B. A. from 
Balliol College in April, 1592 ; died in Virginia in 1610. 
His brother, Sir Richard, was created Viscount Wenman 
in 1628. Francis Carter passed two shares to Toby Pal- 
lavicine, and John Gray two shares to Richard Baynam. 

" Sir Edwin Sandys the Treasurer now the second time 
surrendered his place." 

" The Earl of Southampton acquainted this court that 
himself with the rest of the Lords and Gentlemen, requested 
thereunto by the last quarter Court [May 27], had pre- 
sented their humble desires to his Majesty for the free 
election of their Treasurer. Whereunto his Majesty had 
most graciously condescended, signifying unto them that it 
would be pleasing unto him if they made choice of such a 
one as might at all times and occasions have free access 
unto his Royal Person. [This Sir Edwin Sandys had not.] 
And further declaring it was the mistaking of the messenger 
having not received the message immediately from his own 
royal mouth, to exclude them from the liberty of choosing 
any but the four nominated, whom his Majesty's intent was 
indeed to recommend, but not so as to barr the Company 
from the choice of any other." 

" Whereupon, the whole court rendered to his Majesty all 
humble thanks, and ordered that, by writing, it should be 
signified unto his Majesty." 

Mr. Edward Herbert then placed the Earl of Southamp- 
ton in nomination, and, there being no opposition, he was 
chosen treasurer for the next term by erection of hands, 
and took his oath.^ 

Mr. John Ferrar was then reelected deputy-treasurer by 
ballot. 

Mr. John Ferrar, in his life of his brother, gives an 

^ It will be observed that neither of noted that these Virginia courts seldom 
the four recommended by the king even made more than a pretense of 
was even considered. And it will be complying with the king's wishes. 



384 UNDEK THE COMPANY 

account of this election, in which he seems to get the quar- 
ter courts of May 27 and July 8 confused, as it does not 
agree with the account given in the records ; but it is evi- 
dent that the company grounded their right to free elec- 
tions, both in the company and in the colony, on their let- 
ters patent, or charters, of 1609 and 1612. 

At the preparative court of the company at Sir Thomas 
Smythe's house, on July 6, Mr. Canning, Mr. Essington, 
and Alderman Johnson had presented petitions criticising 
the management of the enterprise during the past year and 
praising the former administration. Mr. Cannin^-'s peti- 
tion was presented to the quarter court (July 8) by Sir 
Thomas Smythe. Thus the old administration party was 
now beginning to find material with which to strike back 
at the party in power ; nevertheless it is really one of the 
strong points of a republican form of government that 
one party has to act constantly under the eagle eye of the 
other. 

At the Virginia court, on July 17, Sir Edwin Sandys sub- 
mitted very important "Propositions considerable for the 
better managing of the business of the Company and ad- 
vancing of the plantation of Virginia in this year, 1620." 
The purposes of each proposition were outlined and special 
committees were to be appointed to see that each was prop- 
erly carried out. 

First, he proposed to press the cases against Sir Thomas 
Smythe and Captain Samuel Argall. 

" Second, four ways of getting in moneys : by lotteries ; 
by debts due on subscriptions ; by debts due on account, 
and by the collections of the bishops. 

" Third, the employing of these moneys to the benefit 
of the plantation, which is to be done in three kinds, — 
in supplies of people ; in supplies of cattle of all sorts, and 
in setting the best commodities." Among " the best com- 
modities " was fishing, under which there were two propo- 
sitions : " First, to set up Mr. Pountis again by making 
up a stock of £1,000, whereof the one half to be from 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 385 

those foreign adventurers^ a fourth from the Company, 
and a fourth from Southampton Hundred. Second, by 
general petition unto his Majesty to preserve the fishing 
at Cape Codd free and indifferent to both the Colonies, as 
was intended in the first patent." 

" The fourth and last matter, but of great difficulty and 
chief importance was the estabhshing of good government 
[for the new nation] in the Colony for religion, justice 
and strength, together with theh effects — peace, plenty 
and prosperity. This part requireth the serious consul- 
tation of the Council and the great labour of learned com- 
mittees, that, being reduced into a body of laws and ma- 
gistracy, it may be first presented to His Majesty's view, 
and, being there approved, may receive confirmation also 
of a Quarter-Court and lastly the assent and ratification of 
the Colony." Under this Sandys proposed: "First, That 
such laws of England as were necessary or fit for the plan- 
tation should be selected by a committee composed of : Sir 
Thomas Roe, Mr Christopher Brooke, Mr John Selden, 
Mr Edward Herbert, and Mr Philip Jermyn. Second, 
That such laws contained in his Majesty's letters-patents 
and Instructions ; the company's orders, constitutions, char- 
ters, commissions and instructions already in being; and 
lastly in tlie orders made hy themselves in their General 
Assemblies, as were fit to be made permanent, etc, should 
be selected by a committee composed of, Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Sir John Danvers, Mr John Wroth and Mr. Samuel Wrote. 
Thirdly, Of the particular government by way of incor- 
poration for every city and borough," which Avas " to be 
for all of one and the same model uniformity, being not 
only a nourisher of amity, but also a great ease to the gen- 
eral government." This was to be perfected by a committee, 
" expert in the government of the corporation of London 
and other cities of the realm, who were to frame out of the 
laws of those cities a form most fit for that people, namely : 
]SIr. Robert Heath, recorder of London ; Mr. Robert Smith 

^ Who were they ? 



386 UNDER THE COMPANY 

[one of the four attorneys in the mayor's court], Mr. Nich- 
olas Ferrar, Mr. William Cranmer, and Mr. George Cham- 
bers." 

For matters of religion the company were to desire direc- 
tion from the archbishop of Canterbury and the lord bishop 
of London, both being of the company, the lord bishop 
being of the Council also. 

The company had made an agreement for fortifying the 
colony, under advice from Sir Horace Vere, General Edward 
Cecil, and Sir Thomas Gates, with "Mr. Englebert; " 
but for military discipline the following were to formulate 
the requisite regulations : Sir Edward Sackville, Sir Dudley 
Digges, Captain Bingham, Captain Edward Masterson, and 
Captain John Bargrave. Sir Edwin Sandys estimated the 
charges of his whole project at £17,800, and shows how 
£18,000 (1400,000?) may be raised to meet them. 

The king gave a patent to Sir Thomas Roe and his part- 
ners, to take effect on July 20, for the sole sealing, im- 
porting, engrossing, and selling of tobacco. This was a 
monopoly soon to be complained against by the Virginia 
company. 

July 22, the Earl of Southampton told the Virginia court 
*Hhat he had received a gracious answer from his Majesty 
concerning their petition against the restraint of tobacco, 
who was pleased to affirm that it was never his meaning to 
grant anything that might be prejudicial to either of those 
plantations," and therefore had referred the matter to the 
Privy Council. 

July 28, Dr. Anthony purchased one share from Am- 
brose Austin and one share from Joane Dawkes' widow. 
Edward Kirby, a planter of Virginia, was admitted into 
the company. Richard Paulson passed one share to Mr. 
Andrews and one to Mr. Greene. 

A committee was appointed to attend the Privy Council 
board on the 24th ; and, on the 28th, the Virginia court 
took into consideration the treaty with the undertakers 
(Roe, etc.) for the sole selling of tobacco, and determined 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 -MAY 12, 1621 387 

that the whole 55,000 weight allowed to be vented in this 
realm by both the plantations shall be appropriated to that 
of the Somers Islands alone, while Virginia tobacco was to 
be taken to Flushing, Middelburgh, or other parts, to be 
vented there ; and committees were appointed to treat with 
the United States of Holland and for making the best ar- 
rangements possible for the sale thereof. 

Sir John Danvers and Sir Thomas Roe had been ap- 
pointed, on July 17, to draft the letter to the king, asking 
him to preserve the fishing at Cape Cod free to both colo- 
nies. The letter was written, and afterwards indorsed, on 
July 22, by the Virginia court, then presented to the king, 
who referred this matter also to the Privy Council, which 
met on July 31, and " their Lordships after a full hearing 
of the allegations on both sides," ordered that " the South 
and North Colonies should fish at and within the limits and 
bounds of each other reciprocally, with this limitation, that 
it be only for the sustentation of the people of the Colonies 
there and for the transportation of people into either 
colony," etc. 

On August 2, Lord Chancellor Bacon and others of the 
Privy Council wrote to Sir Thomas Coventry, the solicitor- 
general (then the acting attorney-general also) to warrant 
him to prepare the special charter for " the Adventurers of 
the Northern Colonic in Virginia." 

" The official Note of Shipping," etc., sent during the 
first term of the Earl of Southampton as treasurer, pre- 
pared to be read at the Easter term of the Virginia court, 
1621, states that " the Bona Nova of 200 tons, with 120 
persons ; " " the Ehzabeth of 40 tons, with 20 persons," and 
" the Mayflower of 140 tons with 100 persons," were sent 
by the Virginia Company to Virginia in August, 1620. 
The Mayflower sailed August 15, but returned, and finally 
put to sea on September 16. In sending the Pilgrims to 
Virginia, Sandys was carrying out his plan for setting up a 
government founded on civil and religious liberty in the 
new world. 



388 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Berkeley, Thorpe, Tracy, and Smith of Nibley, in Sep- 
tember, engaged from William Ewins his ship, the Supply, 
of Bristol (80 tons), Tobias Felgate, captain, to carry men 
and provisions to their plantation in Virginia. The ship 
sailed from Bristol, about October 5, with William Tracy 
and 48 others. 

The Spaniards under Spinola having begun war on the 
Palatinate, James I. determined, in order to aid in defend- 
ing the possessions of his son-in-law, to call a parliament 
and to appeal to it for support. Writs for the elections 
were issued November 23, 1620. 

The king- came to London on November 10, and left on 
the 13th, " yet in this short moment, he resolved on a Par- 
liament." On Friday, November 13, he signed the New 
England Charter. It was a very remarkable document, and 
the first New England Council was a very strong one. A 
majority were then, or had been, members of the Virginia 
Company, which had taken " actual possession of the conti- 
nent, in our name and to our use as Sovereign Lord thereof." 

The day after the signing of this charter (November 14), 
at the Virginia court : — 

" Mr. DeXbridge desired the court, to take some present 
course that he might have free liberty to fish upon the 
northern seas as formerly they had done, from which, as he 
conceived, they were utterly debarred by the late grant 
from his Majesty to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others. 

" Whereupon, 8ir Edwin Sandys did intimate unto the 
court that he was informed that Sir Ferdinando Gorges had 
procured unto himself and others a new patent, now passed 
his Majesty's great seal, wherein certain words were con- 
veyed that did not only contradict a former order of the 
Lords of the Council, which their Lordships, after a full 
hearino- of the alles^ations on both sides and set down in 
July last, by which this Company had yielded some part of 
their right to do them good, and therefore promised to fish 
only for their necessities and transportation of people in 
tender regard of the infancy of that plantation j but by this 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 389 

new grant the adventurers of the northern colony had also, 
excluded those of the southern from fishing at all upon that 
coast without their leave and license, first sought and ob- 
tained, which was contrary and manifestly repugnant to 
that community and freedom which his Majesty by the first 
patent [1606], as is conceived, hath been pleased to grant 
to either colony. 

" The Vu'ginia Court, therefore, seeing no reason why 
they should loose their former right granted unto them by 
their fii'st patent, the sea also being to all as free and com- 
mon as the air, and finding less reason why Sir F. Gorges 
should now appropriate and make a monopoly of the fish- 
ing, which had already cost this Company £6,000 [about 
$150,000 present values], . . . did with a general consent 
resolve to petition his Majesty for redress therein. . . . 
Whereupon, they appointed a committee to draw up the 
petition, . . . and as Sir Thomas Roe, said that he was 
the next day to go to the court, they desired him to pre- 
sent the same to his Majesty." 

When Sir Thomas Roe delivered this petition to James 
I., he said, " that if anything were passed in the New Eng- 
land patent that might be prejudicial to the Southern 
Colony, it was surreptitiously done, and that he had been 
abused thereby by those that pretended otherwise unto 
him." " And his Majesty forthwith gave commandment to 
Lord Chancellor Bacon, then present, that if this new 
Patent were not sealed for to forbear the seal, and if it 
were sealed and not delivered that they should kee]} it in 
hand till they were better informed^ 

November 21, there was a meeting with Lord Chancel- 
lor Bacon about the case, at which were present the Duke 
of Lenox, the Earl of Arundell, the Earl of Southampton, 
Mr. Secretary Calvert, and some others, who, after a full 
hearing, " ordered that the patent should be delivered to be 
perused by some of the Southern Colony, who were to make 
report of what exceptions they find thereunto at the next 
meeting;." 



390 UNDER THE COMPANY 

About the same time, the Earl of Southampton, the pre- 
sidmg officer o£ the Virginia Company, had a conference 
with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and was convinced that the 
Virginia and New England companies would now accord, 
" for that it was agreed on both sides for some important 
reasons to renew hotli of their patents, which was promised 
should be done by mutual advice of the Privy Council." 
On November 25 Southampton and others were again 
" before the Privy Council Board to make report what just 
exceptions they had taken against New England's patent, 
whereby they had found themselves utterly excluded from 
fishing upon the north seas. Whereupon, and after hear- 
ing the aforesaid agreement with Gorges, their Lordships 
ordered — that while the new patents were being prepared 
— this patent of Sir Ferd. Gorges should be sequestered 
and deposited in Lord Chancellor Bacon'' s hands (as 
undelivered,) according to his Majesty^ s expressed com- 
mandment. And that the Virginia Company should, not- 
withstanding, go on fishing without loss of time upon the 
privilege of their former grants." And under the agree- 
ment between the companies the New England Company 
was free to do likewise. 

" Nov. 14, Mr. Reynolds admitted and one Bill of adven- 
ture given him." 

At the preparative court, on November 23, Mr. Del- 
bridge passed two shares to his son ; Captain Edward 
Brewster, four shares to Sir Francis Wyatt ; Thomas Mad- 
docks, two to Mr. Stubbs ; William Litton, Esq., three to 
Captain John Harvey ; Edward Harrison, five to Raphe 
Fogg ; the Somers Islands Company were granted 100 
acres to a share and 500 acres for public land ; Henry 
Rowland purchased one share from David Lloyd, and a 
personal share was given him ; Richard Moreton was ad- 
mitted for a personal share, and fifteen shares were given 
to Captain Tvicker. 

At the Michaelmas quarter court, November 25, " Sir 
Edwin Sandys told the court how careful Mr. Chamber- 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 391 

lyn had been to compound with the States of Middlebor- 
ough for the custom of the tobacco to be brought thither 
this year from Virginia. 

" Mr. Caswell moved to solicit the Lord Mayor for one 
hundred more children to be sent to Virginia. 

" Some of the Somer Islands company (as the Bermudas 
was sold unto them for a far greater quantity of land than 
they now find it to be) moved the Virginia Company to 
grant them a good portion of land in Virginia on that side 
of the coast as lies nearest to them, either at Ronoque 
southerly or elsewhere. To which request the Virginia 
Company yielded on conditions." 

John Smith of Nibley, M. P. for Midhurst, " acquainted 
the Earl of Southampton and the rest of the Council pre- 
sent that it was the humble suit of the generality unto 
them that they would please to enter into consultation and 
advise about such further privileges and immunities as 
were fittinar to be moved at this next Parliament." 

The company had allotted 500 acres of land and twenty 
tenants for the support of a physician-general, and the 
court of December 23 agreed with Dr. Lawrence Bohun, 
who had previously practiced in Virginia, for that place. 

The London Merchant, the Swan, and the Bona Ven- 
ture returned to England from Virginia, via the northern 
fisheries, in December, 1620. And the Joseph returned 
from the Bermudas with Miles Kendall and another batch 
of letters about the negroes taken by the Treasurer, and 
the question was again agitated in the courts of the Somers 
Island Company. In the Virginia courts the Argall busi- 
ness had continued to occupy much time and to cause 
much contention ; but early in the spring of 1620 (upon 
some compromise) it had been agreed therein that " the 
ship [the Treasurer] was to be excepted and no more 
spoken of in connection with the Virginia case," and this 
agreement was compHed with until the bitter dissensions 
of 1623 began. 

The Margaret and John left England about January 11, 
1621. 



392 UNDER THE COMPANY 

On January 26, 1621, the meeting of Parliament was 
prorogued to February 9, probably to give time for the 
deliberations of the council of war. 

In 1620, probably early in that year, " the Right Honor- 
able Lords and the rest of the Cowusayle and body poUi- 
tique, for ye State of his majesties Collonye in Virginia," 
were petitioned by many of the first personal adventurers 
and planters (who were ready to return again upon favor- 
able consideration of their petition), "that some eythar 
Noble, or little lesse in Honor, or Power may be maturely 
advised upon to maintayne and hold up ye dignitye of so 
great and good a cause," and appointed governor in Vir- 
ginia. " We urge not this as willing to derogate from ye 
governor who nowe holds ye place, and hath succeeded the 
thrise Noble deseased Lo. La Warr, whose memorye for 
this business be evar happye, unto whom we suppose if an 
other Noble lyke himself might have risen up, this buisi- 
ness would have fownd much willinger forwardness." They 
say : " We doubt nothing but you allowe it, an approved 
truth, that Great actions are carryed with best success by 
such commanders, who have personal authority and great- 
ness answerable to ye action : Sithence it is not easy to 
sway a vulgar and servile Nature, by vulgar and servile 
Spirits ; and surely in ye raising of so happy a state, as is 
hoped in ye Plantation of Virginia, all cannot be select, 
but some such whom only reverence of ye commanders 
eminence or Nobility (wherunto by Nature every man 
subordinate is ready to yield a willing submission without 
contempt or repyning) may easily persuade under those 
dutys of Obedience : which authority conferred upon a 
meane man, and of one no better than selected out of their 
own Ranke shall nevar be able to compell." Those who 
signed the petition, " in behalf of themselves and many 
others," were : Sir Thomas Gates, Captain Francis West, 
Captain Samuel Argall, Captain Daniel Tucker, Dr. Law- 
rence Bohun, Captain Robert Beheathland, Captain Roger 
Smith, and James Swifte, ensign. 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 393 

At the preparative court, February 8, 1621, the Earl of 
Southampton nominated Sir Francis Wyatt to stand for the 
election (at the next quarter court) of governor to succeed 
Sir George Yeardley, whose commission would expire in 
November next. This was duly done on February 10, the 
Hilary term quarter court, at which time he was also 
chosen one of his Majesty's Council for the company. The 
Earl of Southampton reported to this quarter court that the 
king had favorably received their letter sent by my Lord 
of Doncaster ; " and touching their request to renew their 
2Kitent, his Majesty was likewise pleased they should go to 
the drawing up of their book, being confident they would 
be careful to insert nothing therein that might be preju- 
dicial either to his power or profit; for which cause his 
pleasure was that after they had finished the same, his 
learned Council might peruse it [James I. was now on the 
qui vive'], which afterwards, according to their own desire, 
might also he confirmed hy act of Parliament, for which 
most gracious and princely favour extended towards them, 
the court, with exceeding great joy and comfort, did gener- 
ally testify their bounden thankfulness unto his Majesty, as 
likewise unto the Earl of Southampton and Viscount Don- 
caster, who had together taken so great pains and care in a 
business of so great importance unto them all." 

At this court Sir Richard Bulkeley was admitted for two 
shares, and Mr. George Sandys passed two shares to Sir 
Francis Wenman. It was this knight who married Anne, 
third daughter of Sir Samuel Sandys, and sister to Lady 
Wyatt, and not his first cousin. Sir Ferdinando Wenman, 
as stated by Mr. Neill.' 

On February 13, Lord Chancellor Bacon, replying in 
Parliament to the new speaker. Sergeant (Sir Thomas) 
Richardson, and referring to the reign of James I., 
said : — 

" Time is the only commender and encomiastique worthy 
of his Majesty and his government. Why time ? For that 

1 See The Genesis of the United States, p. 10-19. 



394 UNDER THE COMPANY 

in the revolution of so many years and ages as have passed 
over this Kingdom, notwithstanding, many noble and ex- 
cellent effects were never produced until His Majesty's 
days, but have been reserved as proper and peculiar unto 
them. . . . They be in number eight, . . . [whereof] Thirdly, 
This Kingdom now first in His Majesty's times hath gotten 
a lot or portion in the New World, by the plantation of 
Virginia and the Summer Islands. And certainly it is 
with the Kingdoms on earth as it is in the Kingdom of 
heaven. Sometimes a grain of mustard seed proves a great 
tree. Who can tell ? " 

In the House of Commons on February 16, Sir Samuel 
Sandys, in explaining the absence of Sir Edwin Sandys, 
stated that the cause of it was the Virginia business. "^ 
Patent now drawing about it. Desireth to excuse him till 
that business is over." But Sir Edward Gyles objected, — 
" Virginia not to keep him from England," — and the ser- 
geant was to be sent for all the absent members of the 
House. 

On complaint by the Commons House of Parliament to 
the king of the great abuse of the Virginia lotteries, the 
Privy Council, on March 14, 1621, ordered a proclamation 
for their suspension to be prepared for his Majesty's royal 
signature. It was signed on March 18, and afterwards 
printed as a broadside " by Robert Barker and John Bill, 
printers to the King's most excellent Maiestie," and dis- 
tributed over England. This was a great loss to the Vir- 
ginia Company, as the lotteries had been for some years 
the chief reliance for the funds with which to carry on the 
enterprise. Among the acts proposed to the Parliament 
for supplying the defect, was one for repressing the odious 
and loathsome sin of drunkenness, and for the restraint of 
the excessive prices of beer and ale. The act imposes 
penalties : one third to go to the company of Virginia, 
one third to the poor of the parish, and one third to the 
informer. But upon question of commitment it was re- 
fused. 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 395 

" March 29*^ 1621, Westminster — Warrant to allow the 
Farmers of the Customs certain defalcations from their rent 
of 1618, for Salt, Virginian Tobacco &c imported duty free. 
And for beer, cloth, lead, etc, for Virginia and elsewhere ex- 
ported duty free. Total allowance — £1.774, 16s, lOic?." 

" April 5'^ 1621. Warrant for allowance of defalcations 
from the rent of the Farmers of Customs for 1619, for salt 
and Virginian Tobacco imported, and for tin and beer ex- 
ported duty Free — Total sum £180, lis, 3i<i." 

In July, 1620, Mr. Russell, " the acmunist and chimist," 
proposed to John Smith of Nibley to supply the colony 
of Virginia with an artificial wine to be made in Virginia 
from a vegetable which grew there ; it could be made 
cheaply, easily, would keep well, and would not intoxicate. 
Russell asked £1,000 for it of the company ; but on April 
12, 1621, Sir John Brooke told Smith that " of his own 
knowledge this wine was made of Sassaphras, & licoras 
boyled in water; he had of the drink." 

At the Virginia court of April 22, Mr. John Smith of 
Nibley " moved, that forasmuch as the lotteries were now 
suspended, which hitherto had continued the real and sub- 
stantial food by which Virginia hath been nourished, that 
instead thereof, she might be now preserved by divulging 
faire and good report, as she and her worthy undertakers 
did well deserve ; declaring that it could not but much ad- 
vance the plantation in the popular opinion of the common 
subjects to have a fair and perspicuous history ^ compiled 
of that country from her first discovery to this day, and to 
have the memory and fame of many of her worthies, though 
they be dead, to five and be transmitted to all posterities, 
as namely Sir Thomas Dale, Sir George Somers, Sir Wal- 

^ It is greatly to be regretted that history might not have been published, 

such a history was not written, but the but his motion must have opened the 

times were not auspicious. John Smith eyes of the company to coming events 

of Nibley would have written from the and to the necessity for preserving the 

standpoint of the Sandys party, to copies of their records, which are in- 

which he belonged, and to which Cap- valuable to us now. 
tain John Smith was opposed. His 



396 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ter Ralegh, the Lord Delawarr, Sir Thomas Gates, and 
divers others." 

Mr. Edward Bennett and Lady Berkeley were admitted 
at this court. 

As we have seen in the settlement of the controversy 
between the New England and the Virginia companies, " it 
was agreed on both sides to renew both of their patents." 
The new charter for the Virginia Company had been taken 
in hand at once, and in February the king had been asked 
to consent to having it confirmed by Act of Parliament. 
At a Virginia court, March 4, 1621, Sir Edwin Sandys told 
the company " the occasion of their being assembled this 
day was to let them know how careful he had been in the 
drawing up of their new patent, now j^resented to be read 
unto them.'" He assured them that " he had not omitted 
to insert therein such necessary cautions as would hereafter 
secure and save them harmless against any p)roclamation 
or Patent that might {as heretofore) he procured to their 
prejudice, the same being once passed under the seal and 
confirmed by Act of the Parliaments^ Samuel Wrote, Esq., 
said that the change in the title from " The Treasurer and 
Company " to " The Governor and Company " might cause 
confusion in lawsuits, etc. ; but the new charter was gener- 
ally well approved of by those present. " Because the 
northern colony had to their territories given the name of 
New England, Sandys thought fit that theirs did still retain 
the name of Virginia, for by this means all Virginia should 
be theirs." And the Viro;inia court desired that the lords 
might be entreated on the behalf of the company to procure 
the king's warrant to the solicitor-general to make the new 
charter ready for his Majesty's signature and " to hasten 
the dispatch thereof with some expedition." 

The Virginia Council then wrote a letter to the king, 
" humbly entreating his Majesty's most gracious favour to 
renew their Patent, and that the same might be also con- 
firmed by Act of Parliament, the better to strengthen the 
plantation in genercd by engaging of the whole state in 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 397 

the interest and siqyj^ort of the actio7i.'" It will be seen 
that the motives assigned to the company and to the crown, 
for having the new patent confirmed by Act of Parliament, 
were not the same. 

This letter was delivered to James I. by James Hay, Vis- 
count Doncaster, " and it pleased his Majesty to signify his 
gracious pleasure to Attorney-General Coventry for draw- 
ing up the same." To which end, Sir Edwin Sandys, Ed- 
ward Herbert, Esq., and Mr. John Ferrar, presented " the 
draught of the new charter " to Coventry and exjDlained it 
to him. 

The attorney-general found objections at once ; he said 
that " their new incorporation differing in name from the 
old did thereby imply two distinct corporations, and was 
not warrantable in law unless they surrendered their for- 
mer charters.''^ This matter, however, he thought might be 
amended by himself. " But, Mr. Attorney General said, 
that he must have a special warrant to that effect from his 
Majesty, before he could insert those new clauses and addi- 
tions, which they had made, into a new charter." 

Therefore a petition was drawn to be presented to his 
Majesty asking for this special warrant, and on April 22 
Sir Edwin Sandys told the Virginia court " that Lord Don- 
caster was pleased to undertake to present this petition unto 
his Majesty, and to solicit for answer touching their re- 
quest." 

Mr. John Smith of Nibley had had trouble about his 
plantation of Berkeley Hundred, in Virginia, and " re- 
quested this Virginia court to have authority inserted in the 
new patent which would enable the Quarter-Courts in Eng- 
land to punish the Governor of Virginia by fine or other- 
wise, if the ill-merit of his government should so deserve ! 
But he was told that this could not be done, because the 
charter would have much ado to pass, with such a clause, 
the House of Parliament." 

It was moved at the Virginia court of March 4, 1621, 
that his Majesty or " the House of Parliament " should be 



398 UNDER THE COMPANY 

petitioned against the great loss to the plantations sustained 
by the late proclamation and the grant of the sole importa- 
tion of tobacco to certain patentees (Sir Thomas Roe and 
others). " The court therefore agreed to prefer a petition 
in the name of the Company of Virginia to the lower House 
of Parliament, and therein to complain of the former griev- 
ances . . . whereof they doubted not but they should find 
the redress as of many other Monopolies of like nature 
which the lower House had called into question, and by his 
Majesty's gracious permission intended utterly to extin- 
guish." Sir Francis Wyatt, Mr. George Sandys, and Mr. 
John Ferrar were appointed to draft the petition. 

The Commons committees for the business of the mono- 
polies were Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Crew, Sir Ed- 
ward Coke, Mr. Hineage Finch, Mr. WiUiam Hakewell, 
and Sir Edwin Sandys. 

The country people were, complaining of the great scar- 
city of money and the low prices for farm products, attri- 
buting these things largely to these monopolies ; while 
the politicians of England were definitely dividing into the 
court party and the country, or " patriot," party. This 
finally developed into a revolution. These parties had 
really been evolving for many years. After the rupture 
between the Earl of Warwick and Sir Edwin Sandys the 
three company parties became concentrated into two, which 
may be called the Sandys party and the Smythe party. 
In the subsequent controversies the Smythe party affiliated 
with or catered to the national court party, and the Sandys 
party with the national "patriots," or country or Commons 
party. 

At the Virginia court, on April 22, " Sir Edwin Sandys 
moved that in regard Mr. Edward Bennet, a citizen, had 
so well deserved of this Company by a treatise which he 
made " touching " the inconveniency that the importation 
of tobacco out of Spain had brought into this land, and by 
his often attendance upon the committees of the lower House 
of Commons about the same (who were well incHned to 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 -MAY 12, 1621 399 

afford their best assistance for prohibiting the bringing in 
of Spanish tobacco), that therefore he might have the 
favour to be admitted a free member of the Company," 
which was at once done. 

Bennet's treatise, which had been used before the com- 
mittees, has been preserved. It is quite long, but very 
interesting. In it he says : " The Chiefe Spring from 
whence the mayne Current of Treasure flowing into all 
Christendome, hath his originall, is in the Indies [Amer- 
ica], & by the Spanish government is forced to set first 
into S]3aine." When we consider the immense amount of 
gold and silver found by the Spaniards in their American 
possessions, the hopes of the Virginia Company for the like 
in their possessions will seem most natural. Bennet ex- 
plains the decay of trade and the scarcity of silver in Eng- 
land by the fact that the English merchants, instead of 
receiving bullion for their merchandise in Spain, now traded 
it for some .400,000 weight of tobacco, which they brought 
into the kingdom. " In so much that the Spanish say, 
when they see all our goods landed — all that will he 
jKiid in s7noak.'' He goes on to show that England had 
thus failed to import at least a million pounds of bullion 
since his Majesty's reign, which was greatly to be regretted, 
" for money is the soule and sinews of trade, and a well 
governed trade, the true fountain of treasure." 

" The good then that we have done to Spaine by buying 
our Tobacco from them, hath caused them since the year 
1598 to inhabite the territories of Caracoes, Cumanagotta, 
Trinidado, Oranoque, & now at last all Maracabo, for in 
those days (I was an eye witnesse to it) their people went 
thither more unwilling then ours now go to Virginia & the 
Summer Islands, (yet the King gave them leave to carry & 
recarry all things Custome free :) but now the case is 
altered, for if they would give leave to as many to go as 
would, they would soon leave few enough in Spaine. '' 

And the importing of Spanish tobacco had also hurt 
England in " that it hath altogether hindered that planta- 



400 UNDER THE COMPANY 

tion in Virginia which in short time might yeeld his Maies- 
tie as much or more profit, then the aforesaid places do to 
the King of Spaine besides the general good it would bring 
to all this Common Wealth, cannot be imagined, for if his 
Majestic graunt this one Priveledge to them [the prohibiting 
the importation of Spanish tobacco] and suffer it only to 
be brought from Virginia and Somers Islands, the lucre of 
gain by Tobacco, will draw thither more inhabitants in one 
year then the Company have done with all their care and 
charge ever since the plantation, and let them once be 
drawne thither, they will quickly find better commodities 
then Tobacco." Bennet had long been a dealer in tobacco, 
and was familiar with the weed. He says : " If any alledge 
that those countries yeldes not so good tobacco as the Span- 
ish Indies, I answere there is some as good Tobacco brought 
from Virginia and the Summer Islands, as the first Tobaccos 
were that we had out of Spaine. And no doubt, but as 
they discovering further into the Land, found better 
grounds for Tobacco : So will our people do also as they go 
further. To conclude Shut the gates of entrance of To- 
bacco, and you open the Gate for the entrance of Treasure : 
but open the gate for the entrance of Tobacco and you shut 
the gate for the entrance of Treasure." 

When the House of Commons met (after the recess) on 
April 27, Sir Edwin Sandys, from the sub-committee, de- 
livered to the grand committee, " Five Heads of the Decay 
of Trade." The third of these was, " The Importation of 
Spanish Tobacco — and the remedy was : To supply to- 
bacco out of Virginia and the Somer Islands, and to pro- 
hibit all other tobacco," etc. 

The next day Lord Cavendish called " the Business for 
foreign tobacco," etc., up for debate. 

Sir Edward Coke said " that this pointeth directly at Vir- 
ginia, that no commodity can be banished, but by Act of 
Parliament — would have Virginia have the tobacco ; but 
would not consent to have the subject hindered from plant- 
ing it here. 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 401 

" Sir Edwin Sandys, concurreth for that ; but to have the 
Resokition of the House forbidding of Foreign Tobacco. 

" Sir Geo. Moore — concordat. 

" Sir Edwin Sandys — That all the Kings subjects may 
freely trade thither, and without licence of the Company. 

" Sir Wm. Strowde — To banish Tobacco generally and 
to allow Virginia, but a certain time for it. 

" Mr. Gary. To banish tobacco generally and help Vir- 
ginia by some other means. 

" Sir J. Perrott. Not to banish all Tobacco in respect of 
Va. and S. I. — To give them some time — else, over- 
throweth the Plantations. 

" Mr. SoUicitor [Heath]. Loveth England better than Va. 
A great hurt to all the state of our Kingdom. To contri- 
bute rather to Virginia otherwise. 

" Sir D. Digges. Wisheth tobacco of Va. prove good 
etc. 

" Mr Towerson. Except we banish all tobacco — Span- 
ish tobacco will be brought in as plentifully as now. 

" Sir Rich. Worsly. To banish all. 

" Sir Ed. Sackvyle. Not to banish all, till order for sup- 
ply of Virginia — else all people there undone. 

" Mr Ferrar. Fit to banish all ? Yet now 4,000 Eng- 
lish there who have no other means, as yet, to live on. 

" Sir George Moore : — To divide The Question : — 

" I. Whether to banish Foreign. 

" n. For our own Dominions. 

" Sir Guy Palmes. To banish aU. 

" Mr Pymme — Fit to banish all. 

" Sir H. Poole. Against all in generall. To Pull it up 
by the Roots — To help Virginia otherwise. 

" Sir J. Horsey. Thought not to speak of this vile 
weed — When he first a Parliament man this vile Weed 
not known — Thousands have died of this vile Weed. — 
Abhorreth it the more, because the King disliketh it — 
Prohibited to be used in Alehouses — No good ground for 
Va. to banish all. 



402 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Sir Tho. Jermyn — Loveth tobacco as ill as any, if ill 
tobacco — To put the 1** Question — and defer the 2°** to 
a Committee to consider what time fit to be given Vir- 
ginia. 

" Sir Edw. Cecill — The Question now is whether one 
question or two. 

" Sir Francis Goodwyn, accordant. 

" Sir Jo. Jephson, accordant. The Va. Co. never heard. 
— Wine and Drink hurt many ; yet to banish it will Kill 
here. 

" Mr John Smyth. Hath his Interest in Va. and S. I. 
The Company restraineth the cultivation of tobacco by all 
means it can. To give it sometime, else we overthrow the 
Plantations. Virginia and S. I., holden of East Green- 
wich. 

" Mr. Raynscrofte — Fit to draw a Bill and not to go 
to Question 'till then. 

" M"" Alf ord. That, for foreign Tobacco thought of and 
reported : This for all not. — We read a Bill thrice. 

" Upon Question — Importation of aU foreign tobacco 
thought fit to be barred. No one negative." 

This was the resolution Sir Edwin Sandys had asked 
for. 

Sir Edw. Peyton, on " a petition from two Captains, 
Planters in Va : — Raphe Hamor and Wm. Tucker," it 
seems, had drafted " An Act for Restraint of the inordi- 
nate use of tobacco," which he had reported to the grand 
committee ; but Sir Edward Coke, in his report, forgot it, 
and it was not called up for debate until May 3. Sir Edwin 
Sandys, Sir Dudley Digges, Sir George Manners, Mr. Drake, 
Mr. Delbridge, etc., spoke on the question (in which the 
Lady De la Warr was interested), and a committee was 
appointed to look into the matter for the relief of these 
men ; " to meet tomorrow in the afternoon in the Star 
Chamber, with power to send for the patentees and to see 
the Patent." This was the patent to Sir Thomas Roe and 
others for the sole importation, etc., of tobacco. The report 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 403 

in the Commons journals is brief and indefinite ; but after 
the report of the committee the question again came up for 
debate on May 13. (See hereafter.) 

The " patriots " in the Virginia Company asserted that 
the court party encouraged the New England movement in 
order to divide and weaken the power of those who were 
advancing the popular movement in the Virginia courts. 
The opposition of the Virginia Company as a body was not 
to tlie New England charter as a whole. The especial cause 
of the division was " the fishing clause," the Sandys j)arty 
joining with the Commons in opposing, while the Smythe 
party aided the crown in upholding this clause. And the 
contention grew until the Cape Cod fishery case became an 
important factor in the contest then going on " between 
the two most important powers [the crown and the Com- 
mons] known to the English constitution," — the ques- 
tion in the case beinof- whether the colonial settlements were 
the demesnes of the crown (king and his Privy Council), 
lying beyond the jurisdiction of the state (Parliament) or 
not? Members of the Virginia Company were on both 
sides. Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the managers of their 
side had silenced the opposition of the Virginia Company 
as a body, secured the cooperation of many of them, and, 
catering to the crown, made themselves solid with the 
king and his Privy Council. But the advocates of free 
fishing told Gorges that " howsoever he had sped before 
the Lords [Privy Council] he should hear more of it the 
next Parliament." And soon after the session began the 
matter was brought before the committees, with Gorges and 
others before them. They requested Gorges to produce the 
patent ; but he said (for aught he knew) it was still in the 
crown office, and made a very diplomatic reply to their 
queries. When Parliament reassembled after the recess, 
on April 27, there was reported and read " An Act for 
the maintenance and increase of shipping and navigation, 
and for the freer liberty of fishing and fishing voyages to 
be made and performed in and upon the seas, sea coasts. 



4:04 UNDER THE COMPANY 

and places of Newfoundland, Virginia and New England, 
and other the seas, sea coasts, and parts of America." The 
purport of this act was, " that the free right of engaging in 
fishery tends greatly to the increase of the number of ships 
and mariners, but of late an attempt had been made to 
interfere with this freedom. All British subjects to have 
free right of fishing on the shores of America, and to select 
their places for curing fish according to priority of arrival, 
with liberty to take wood for fuel and repair's." 

The act came up for consideration on May 5, and Sir 
Edwin Sandys (of the Virginia Company, but also M. P. 
for Sandwich) opened the debate with a speech in favor of 
the bill. He said " That some have gotten a grant from 
the King — a grant of the land in Virginia, which they 
called JVeio England. Two colonies first in Virginia — 
Northern and Southern. The last hath proceeded with 
£100,000 [= $2,500,000?] charge; the Northern not: 
Now desired to proceed : which called now New England 
— That this fishing twice a year, far better than that of 
Newfoundland — That the Company of Virginia, by the 
Deceit of the Masters of ships sent about 7, or 8 years 
[1613-1614] sithence lost £6000. — That the Northern 
Colony have got a sole fishing there, — yea, excluding the 
Company of Virginia — The King being made acquainted 
with it, stayed the Delivery of the Patent — That the Col- 
ony of Virginia desireth no appropriation of this fishing 
to them — This will bring £100,000 per annum hither 
in coin," etc. He ended by moving " for a free liberty 
for all the King's subjects for fishing there." 

Secretary Calvert (also a member of the Virginia Com- 
pany) replied opposing the bill, on the ground " that he 
never would strain the King's prerogative against the good 
of the commonwealth," etc. 

It was further debated by Mr. Glanvyle, Mr. Neale, Mr. 
Chidleigh, Mr. Guy, Mr. Brook, etc. In the replies to 
the crown party Mr. Brook made the point " that we [the 
Parliament] may make Laws here for Virginia ; " and Sir 



ENGLAND, JULY 8, 1620 — MAY 12, 1621 405 

Edwin Sandys " that Virginia was holden of the Manor of 
East Greemoichy 

The bill was committed to Sir Edwin Sandys, and " a 
full hearing advertized to all Burgesses of London, York, 
and the Port Towns, who might wish to testify, on that 
day seven-night in the Exchequer Chamber." Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges was at the meeting, the matter was again 
postponed, and the question was not settled by the third 
Parliament. 

When James I. suggested to the Virginia court of May 
27, 1620, several men, one of whom was to be chosen 
treasurer, the earls of Pembroke and Southampton asserted 
in the court that it was " the besinning; of a move agfainst 
the companies just freedome of election granted by Letters 
Patents." When Sir John Danvers, a few weeks after, 
asked the Earl of Southampton " whether he would be 
pleased to own the place, if the Company chose him Treas- 
urer ? " the earl answered : " I know the King will be 
angry at it, but so the expectation of this pious and glo- 
rious work may be encouraged let the Company do with 
me what they please." The private understanding with the 
earl was that Sandys should continue in control " in pro- 
secuting still those wayes which might give satisfaction to 
the undertakers." Since the earl's election (July 8, 1620), 
Sandys and himself, " with other co-incident officers," had 
been advancing " the work intended in a way which was 
generally acceptable to the patriot party. . . . The publick 
asserting of those rights and immunities granted under the 
Great Seal of England much raised the spirits and increased 
the numbers of those that made preparation for the planta- 
tion. . . . As it seemed almost to promise as well as to 
invite a great part of the Nation to withdraw themselves 
from an oppressing unto a more free government estab- 
lishing in Virginia, whither great store of shipping was 
engaged and even in readiness." These ships were to be 
sent under Sir Francis Wyatt, the first governor chosen by 
the Southampton-Sandys administration, who was also to 



406 UNDER THE COMPANY 

carry over the more matured plans of Sir Edwin Sandys 
for establishing the new nation. But the court party dur- 
ing the same time was obstructing " the work intended " 
by the " patriots," thereby causing delay, and " the great 
store of shipping " engaged and ready to sail for Virginia 
in the spring " could not be despatched for many months." 

At the preparative court of May 10, " five shares were 
given Mr Newland for his extraordinary pains in taking care 
of shipping our people in ye Abigail, and two shares were 
given Mr. Bonnell in consideration of his pains in procur- 
ing the French from Languedock for ye Company, now in 
Virginia." These shares were confirmed at the following 
quarter court. " Thomas Colby allowed one Bill of adven- 
ture of £12 10s, and one personall share due to his brother 
Edmond Colby, deceased ; Francis Carter transferred 5 
shares — 2 to Sir Henry Rainsford, 1 to Mr. Craddock, 1 
to Mr. Palmer and one to Mr. John Hart ; Lott Peere passed 
two shares to Mr. Barber, and Mr. Downes passed three 
shares to Mr. John Smith." 

The quarter court of the Easter term met on May 12, 
and the first term of the Earl of Southampton as treasurer 
of the company then ended. 



IV 

VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 
SIE GEORGE YEARDLEY, GOVERNOR 

In November, 1620, Governor Yeardley sent a vessel to 
the Bermudas for fruits, etc., but "by the ignorance of 
the pilot " it failed to find the islands. 

In December the Temperance came in, according to some 
accounts " from New foundland," to others " from Canada," 
— terms frequently then appHed by Virginians to the pre- 
sent New England coast ; and it is probable that this ship 
brought first the news to Virginia that the Mayflower, 
Captain Thomas Jones, with John Clark as pilot, after long 
beating at sea, had arrived at Cape Cod in November, and 
that the emigrants had finally determined to land there. 

Bradford says : " Partly by ye discontented & mutinous 
speeches that some of the Strangers [those who were not 
Pilgrims ?] amongst them had let fall — That when they 
came a shore they would use their owne libertie ; for none 
had power to command them, the patent they had being 
for Virginia, and not for New England, which belonged 
to an other goverment, with which ye Virginia Company 
had nothing to doe. And partly that such an acte by them 
done (this their condition considered) might be as firme as 
any patent, and in some respects more sure." ^ Therefore, 
on November 21, they made " the Mayflower compact," in 
which they framed for themselves in North Virginia the 
same privileges of government granted them by the popu- 
lar charters and constitution of South Virginia, under which 
they had been sent to that colony. They landed at Ply- 
mouth Rock on " Forefathers' Day," December 21, 1620. 

1 Bradford's History. 



408 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The emigrants were not all " Pilgrims ; " some were from 
Essex, London, and other places in England. William 
Molines, his wife and children (Joseph and Priscilla), are 
said to have been Huguenots ; Christopher Martin, " the 
o-overnor in the Mayflower," was a member of the Virginia 
Company, and owned lands on James River, purchased from 
Captain George Percy and others ; Stephen Hopkins was 
an old planter of Virginia, etc. 

Although civil and religious liberty was planted in 
America under the inspiration of the liberal ideas then 
budding in England, which were largely derived from an 
admiration impressed on the minds of English students for 
the form of government established for Geneva by Calvin 
and the Reformers, the accomplishment of these " pop- 
ular " ideas was due to the popular charters of the Virginia 
Company of London, drafted by Sir Edwin Sandys, " a 
church of England man " and a son of one of the heads 
of that church. For it was under these charters that the 
seed was planted both in South and in North Virginia. 
Sufficient honor rightly belongs to the Pilgrim Fathers to 
make it unnecessary to take for them any honor which 
rightly belongs to others ; and, after giving all due credit 
to all others, it must be confessed that civil and reHgious 
liberty in the new world owe their first debt to broad- 
minded churchmen, and to the hberality of the Church of 
England, which was also the great factor in holding Amer- 
ica for the Anglo-Saxon against the Church of Rome. 

November 13, 1620, Governor Yeardley granted Bartolo- 
mew Hoskins (Haskins, Hopkins?) 100 acres of land on 
the Back River, in the corporation of Elizabeth City, for 
his personal adventure. 

December 15, the governor granted to Richard Pace 
400 acres as his dividend, called " Pace's Paines," in the 
corporation of James City, over the river from Jamestown, 
and 100 acres to Francis Chapman as his dividend. 

December 29, Captain George Thorpe wrote from 
Southampton Hundred in Virginia : " To the Right worthy 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 409 

my verie Lovinge Frend Jolin Smith Esquier att North 
nybley, give these," and sent the letter by Thomas Par- 
tridge. He excuses the comparative brevity of the letter 
by saying, "Wee being nowe in the business of examin- 
ing witnesses concerning Captain Argall wherein wee sit 
comonly till mid night ; " will "write more by the next ship, 
against which time he hopes Captain Woodleefe's tobacco 
will be ready ;, and says that the country is very healthy." 
He was " persuaded that more do die here of the disease of 
their minds than of their body . . . and by not knowing 
they shall [have to] drink water here." When " Mr Russell 
the chimist " was trying to introduce sassafras tea into 
Virginia as an artificial wine, in July, 1620, it was stated 
that " there is in Virginia and is like to be shortly 3,000 
people. And the greatest want they complayne of is good 
drinke, wine beinge too dear, and barley chargeable, which 
though it should there be so wen, it were hard in that Coun- 
try, being so hot, to make malt of it, or if they had malt to 
make good beer." But Thorpe now writes that "they had 
found a way to make a good drink from Indian corn, which 
he prefered to good English beer." Was this the begin- 
ning of old Virginia corn whiskey ? The quaHties of corn 
in that kind had been long known. Gon§alo Ximines, of 
New Granada, who died in 1546, wrote that " maize steeped 
in water, boiled, and afterwards fermented makes a very 
strong liquor." 

The Bona Nova, of 200 tons. Captain John Hudleston, 
with 120 persons, and the Elizabeth, of 40 tons, with 
20 persons, left England not long before the Mayflower, 
and, like that ship, were carried past Virginia by the current 
to the north. The Elizabeth went to " Newfoundland " 
and remained there till the spring of 1621, when she sailed 
for Virginia.^ The Bona Nova beat her way back to 
Virginia as soon as she could, and arrived there in the win- 
ter of 1620-21, probably in January. " She brought notice 
to the governor and Council of the great supplies of all 

^ Did not Edward Leister come to Virginia from New England on this ship ? 



410 UNDER THE COMPANY 

sorts intended to be sent in the spring, with orders for fit 
preparation to be made before-hand, as well for the receiv- 
ing, as for the disposing and employing of them, both for 
the public, and their own private benefit." This information 
was contained in " A Declaration of the Supplies intended 
to be sent to Virginia, in this yeare 1620. By his Maies- 
ties Counseil for Virginia. 18. Julii 1620." ^ The ship also 
brought news of the propositions for advancing the planta- 
tion made at the Virginia court on July 17 ; of the steps 
then taken for framing suitable laws for government and 
magistracy for their better guidance, etc. The Council also 
sent written instructions concerning the planting of mul- 
berry-trees, and making fit rooms for the silkworms. They 
had formerly required the governor of Virginia to revenge 
the murder of the ten English by the Chickahominies, which 
Argall had left unavenged ; but the governor doubting 
the wisdom of this, they now " leave it to your [the gover- 
nor's] judgement upon mature deliberation with ye whole 
body of the Councell so to proceed therein as that justice 
being satisfyed for that barbarous crueltye may be other- 
wise left to the disturbance of the peace of the Colonye. 
But touching the other matters of Capt. Argall we alter 
nothing from our first resolutions. . . . But some alteration 
seemeth to have been wrought in you who promising to 
dispatch all that business at the former return of the Bona 
Nova have not so much as sent them one line or word con- 
cerning him," etc. This public letter was written in 
August, 1620, and signed by " Ed. Sheffeild, Lion. Cran- 
feild, Ed. Saudis, Jno Davers, Xpo. Brook, Tho. Gibbs, Jno 
Farrar, Ro. Smyth, Tho. Shepheard." 

The ship also brought the commissions of the recently 
appointed Councilors of State in Virginia : George Thorpe, 
Thomas Newce, John Pountis, William Tracy, David Mid- 
dleton, Mr. Blewit of the iron-works, and Mr. Thomas 
Harwood, the chief of Martin's Hundred. 

Captain Thomas Newce, who came in this ship, was re- 

^ Reprinted in Force, iii., no. 5, pp. 13-17. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1G21 411 

garded by the Council in England as " a choice man." He 
was sent to take general charge of all " the Company's land 
and tenants in Virginia whatsoever, and for his entertain- 
ment [wages] it was ordered that he and such as shall 
succeed him in that place shall have 1,200 acres of land set 
out belonging to that office : 600 acres at Kiquotan (now 
called Elizabeth City), 400 at Charles City, 100 at Henrico, 
100 at James City, and for the manuring [cultivation] of 
this land shall have forty tenants to be placed thereupon — 
whereof twenty to be sent presently, and the other twenty 
in the two springs ensuing." It was also ordered that " Mr. 
John Porey, the Secretary, and his successors in that place, 
should have 500 acres of land belonging to that office and 
twenty tenants to be planted thereupon, and the Secretary 
there from henceforward should receive no fees for himself, 
and the fees to be paid his clerk for writing and other 
charges to be rated by the court." 

The intent of the Great Charter of 1619 " to ease all the 
Inhabitants of Virginia forever of all taxes and public 
burthens as much as may be," by laying out public lands 
to be worked by tenants on shares, — the wages of the 
officials to be paid out of said shares, — was not so Utopian 
as at first it misfht seem. At one end land was abundant 
in Virginia ; at the other, England was filled with people 
vainly seeking employment ; the two ends met in the 
colony, and the idea would have answered a doubly good 
purpose for some years, save for the fact that the class of 
people necessarily sent as tenants to these lands seems to 
have been physically incapable of resisting the clmiate, and, 
notwithstandino- the faithful use of all known remedies and 
preventatives, but few of them survived " the seasoning." 
They had to go through the purge, and only the fittest 
survived. 

" The Virginia Court of July 22 1620, in England, in 
reply to the petition of John Wood, who had resolved to 
inhabit in Virsfinia, to orant him eio-ht shares in Elizabeth 
river, for eight shares of land formerly granted unto him, 



412 UNDER THE COMPANY 

because thereon is timber fitting for his turn, and water 
sufficient to launch such ships as shall be there huiltfoi^ the 
use and service of the company, agreed to recommend the 
consideration of the premises to the Governor and Council 
of Virginia to deal therein as they shall think fit." Mr. 
Wood probably arrived on the Bona Nova with the pur- 
pose of establishing a shipbuilding yard, possibly near the 
present site of Norfolk. 

Owing to the continual depredations of English pirates 
in the West Indies, and to the report that England was pre- 
paring to assist the Palatinate against Spain, " the Vice- 
Roy of New Spaine caused ships and men to be made 
ready, some 6.000 souldiers, which were to meete as many 
more men and shippes at the Havana, to cut off our coun- 
trymen in Virginia ; and they were upon their march to 
S. John de Uloa, the Port Towne for Mexico, when a coun- 
termand came from the King of Spain to stay them." This 
was going on late in 1620, and early in 1621. We have 
few particulars, but it is certain that the agencies of New 
Spain were constantly used against the settlement of the 
Enoflish in the new world. 

January 31, 1621, Sir George Yeardley, George Thorpe, 
Thomas Newce, Nathaniel Poole, Samuel Maycock, John 
Pory (secretary), John Rolfe, and John Pountis wrote to 
the Earl of Southampton, the Council and Company for 
Virginia in London, inclosing a petition to the king against 
" his Late Proclamation against the Importation of Tobacco 
into England," ending, " Male it therefore please your Maj- 
estic out of your princelie compassion (since Ave are assured 
that you tender the lives and wellfare of your Subjects beyond 
thousands of gould and silver, and your Royall word rati- 
fied by your great Scale, farr above both,) either to revoke 
that proclamation and so restore us to our ancient liberty 
or otherwise to send for us all home and not to suffer the 
Heathen to triumph over us and to saye Where is now theire 
God. So shall we all," etc. These documents were sent 
to England by the Temperance, which left Virginia early 
in February. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 413 

William Ewins' ship, the Supply, of Bristol (eighty tons), 
Captain Tobias Felgate, which left England with fifty per- 
sons, on October 5, 1620, arrived at " Berkeley," February 
8, 1621, and received the following certificate : — 

" These are to certifie the Right hon^^® Right worshipfull, 
and others of the Counsell and Company for this First South- 
ern Colony of Virginia, that there arrived at Barklay in the 
same country, for the account of that Society and the plan- 
tation of the said hundred, upon the 29*^ of January 1620 
[0. S.] these fifty persons under written, vizt : — William 
Tracy Esq' ; Mary Tracy his wife ; Thomas Tracy their 
Sonne; Joice Tracy their daughter; Frances Gre)i[v?] ell, 
Ehzabeth Webbe, Alice Heskins, Isabell Gilford, Arnold 
Oldsworth Esq'^ Robert Pawlett, divine; Thomas Kemys 
gent ; Robert Long, gent ; John Holmden, gent ; Richard 
Ferriby, gent ; George Keene, gent ; Nicholas Combe 
gent ; William Finche, Margaret his wife and Frances their 
daughter ; John Gibbes ; Robert Baker ; John Howlett the 
elder, John and William Howlett his sonnes ; Walter Pros- 
ser ; Giles Carter ; George Hall ; John Baily ; Thomas 
Baugh ; Gabriel Holland ; Richard Holland ; Giles Wil- 
kins ; Giles Broadway ; Richard Button ; Richard Milton ; 
Joane Cooper [or Coopy], Antony Cooper and Elizabeth 
Cooper ; Philip Vrauge [Orange, Strange ?] ; John Page 
and Francys his wife ; John Linzey ; Roger Linzey ; James 
Jelfe ; Richard RoUes, Jane his wife and Benedict RoUes 
their sonne ; Alexander Broadway ; Arthur Kemis, gent. 

" (Signed) George Yeardley. 
Jo: PoRY, Sect." 

It had lono; been the custom for the "governor of Vir- 
ginia to give a certificate to each ship on her arrival ; but 
only a very few of these of&cial records have been pre- 
served. This ship brought the revocation of the former 
commission to Captain Woodliffe, and a new commission 
to George Thorpe and William Tracy to be governors of 



414 



UNDER THE COMPANY 



Berkeley Town and Hundred in Virginia ; a letter of gen- 
eral advice and instruction on Virginian affairs, from 
Richard Berkeley and John Smith, addressed to George 
Thorpe, and carried over by William Tracy ; a copy of the 
orders and constitution of the Council of the Virginia Com- 
pany for the better governing of the affairs of the company, 
etc. Among those who came over at this time was Rev. 
Robert Paulett, with whom the proprietors had agreed to 
be their preacher, physician, and surgeon at Berkeley. 

The Supply left Virginia soon after April 3, 1621, " with 
2,000 lbs of Tobacco on account of Mr. Thorpe, Captain 
Powell, Mr Tracy and Mr. Basse. 1.500 lbs of Mr Basse 
on his own account. 

" 600 lbs of Mr. Thorpe on his own account. 

" About 400 lbs of Capt. Martin ditto 

" 400 lbs of John Sabine " 

" 200 " of Richard Godf ree " 

" And the following passengers — Capt. [John] Martin ^ 
and his man ; M' Basse, M^ Yate, Nicholas Combe and 
John Sabine. 



^ The following warrant of the gov- 
ernor and Council is worth preserv- 
ing : — 

" Whereas Capt. John Martin of 
Martin Brandon Esquire at his late 
departure from hence for England did 
leave in the custody of Lieut. Edmund 
Saunders seventeen head of cattle 
(vid^). Seaveu milche Kine, one Bull, 
three two-yearlings, three yearlings 
and three sucking calves — which cat- 
tle remain in controversie between him 
the said Capt. John Martin, and Mr 
John Bargrave of Patrick's bourne in 
Kent Esquire. Being well persuaded 
of ye integritie and honestie of the 
said Lieut. Edmunde Saunders and 
finding him to be the fittest man for 
that purpose, we hereby approve and 
consigne to him the custodie of the 
said Cattle either till the said Capt 
John Martin return into Virginia, or 



till the said controversie be ended be- 
tween him and the said John Bar- 
grave. 

" In witness whereof we have to 
these presents sett our handes. 

" Given at James Cyttie May ye [13] 
1621. 

" George Yardley. 
" George Thorpe. Nath Powle. 
" Tho: Nuce Jo. Poky, Seer." 

Captain Martin had left his afi'airs 
at Martin's Brandon in charge of Saun- 
ders, whose house was about a mile 
from Martin's residence. This war- 
rant and the fact that Saunders was 
killed in the massacre of 1622, and the 
cattle said to have been carried off by 
the Indians, furnished the basis of 
Martin's seventh demand in his suit 
against Yeardley in December, 1624- 
January, 1625. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 415 

" The freight on 5.100 lbs tobacco @ 3d 

per lb £63. 15. 00. 

" 6 passengers @ £6 36. 



£99. 15. 00." 
The ship also carried letters from Tracy and Thorpe to 
their associates. Within less than a month after her de- 
parture William Tracy died. 

In March, 1620, there were, by the census, 887 people 
living in Virginia ; of these about 700 had passed through 
the seasonino- and had become acclimated. Between that 
date and March, 1621, ten ships had arrived in Virginia 
(principally in the spring and summer of 1620) which left 
England with 1051 emigrants. In March, 1621, there were, 
by the census, only 843 English living in Virginia. That 
is, of 1938 people (about 700 acclimated and 1238 new- 
comers) 1095 had died en route and in Virginia. As the 
death rate among the acclimated was comparatively small, 
it is probable that over 80 out of 100 newcomers had died 
within twelve months, showing that the summer of 1620 
was one of the most disastrous periods in the history of the 
colony. 

The Margaret and John, of 150 tons, left England early 
in January, with eighty-five emigrants for Virginia. At 
Guadeloupe she took on six Frenchmen, " and then they 
were in all (including the crew) 103 souls with women and 
children." When off Mevis, where they wished to water, 
'' being the common trade way both for English and Dutch," 
on March 30, 1621, they fell in with two large ships, " pre- 
tending to be Hollanders," but as soon as these ships had 
gained a fair position, and after some parley, they took in 
their Holland flag, advanced the Spanish colors, and opened 
fire on the " small and not very well provided English 
Shipp. Who parforce was constreyned to enter into this 
conflict," " which continued 5 or 6 houres most desperate." 
The English finally beat off both Spanish ships, after kiUing 
their captain and making " their skuppers run with blood," 
and " couloring the sea in their quarter." The burden of 



416 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the largest Spanish ship was 300 tons, with 22 pieces of 
brass ; of the other, 200 tons, having 16 pieces of brass. 

The Enghsh ship had eight cast-iron pieces and one 
small faulcon. They lost eight slain outright : Doctor Bo- 
hun, Mr. Thomas Dodmister (or Demeter), Thomas Read, 
William Garrett, Thomas Vernam (salt - man), Gabriel 
Peyes, David Fathering, and Ralph Phillips. Two died 
after, — Francis Annis, gent., and Edward Nubery, sailor, 
— and some twenty wounded, yet cured ; among these 
were the captain, James Chester ; William Bii'd, gent. ; Alex- 
ander Boventon, gent. ; William Bannington, gent. ; John 
Watkins, Philip Darwin, Robert Lector, Anthony Browne, 
gent. ; Mr. Howe, gent. ; William Joyce, quartermaster ; 
William Lucas, carpenter's mate ; John Robbins, steward ; 
three Frenchmen, and three sailors. The other officers of 
the ship were Griffen Parnell, master ; John Langle, and 
Humphrey Sherbrook, master's mates ; James Jerland, sur- 
geon ; Thomas Charn, " pilot for the West Indies ; " Mr. 
John Mines, the captain's son-in-law, and Thomas Hother- 
sall, interpreter. 

This sea fight was quite an event, and the English were 
evidently proud of their part in it. A long account of it 
was printed in London in 1621, which Purchas made use 
of in his " Pilgrimes," and Smith in his " History of Vir- 
ginia." In the same year an account was printed by 
George Deseler, at Amsterdam, and " Tho: Hothersall late 
zitysone and groser of London being an / witness and 
interpreter in this exployte," also wrote an account which 
is still in manuscript. The ship arrived in Virginia in 
April. Dr. Lawrence Bohun, who was killed, was not only 
a large patentee of lands in Virginia, but had recently been 
appointed physician-general for the company in Virginia, 
" unto which place there was allotted 500 acres of land 
and twenty tenants, to be placed thereon at the Company's 
charge." The company had sent by the ship good store of 
silkworms' seed obtained out of France, Italy, and Spain, 
under the charge of a servant of Mr. Jasper Stallenge, 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 417 

" who bad these five years together been brought up in 
tending of the king's silkworms under his said master, 
whereby he was become very skillful in breeding of the 
worms and in winding of their silk, and was also a good 
gardener," whom they had employed to serve them in Vir- 
ginia for three years, Avhere he was also to teach others. 
But it seems that " the silk worms' seed miscarried " in the 
fight. 

The Duty and the Bona Nova returned to England in 
the spring of 1621 with tobacco. The Duty was sent to 
Flushing to sell the tobacco there, and the Bona Nova 
to Middelburgh for the same purpose, Mr. Arthur Swayne, 
a merchant of London, being the factor for the Virginia 
Company in each instance. Governor Yeardley's tobacco 
was sent under the charge of his nephew. Ensign Rossing- 
ham, who sold it for him in Holland. Some of the tobacco 
carried by the Duty was to pay for the fifty boys, which 
cost the company ,£500, and for which the planters repaid 
them in sixty-six weight of tobacco at 3s per pound, rating 
it at £10 a boy ; " which tobacco, being sold by the com- 
pany, they could hardly reach to £5 the boy," and the 
planters were afterwards required to make up the differ- 
ence. 

The Bona Nova carried divers letters, and one general 
letter from the Council of Virginia directed to the com- 
pany in England, telling them that some staple commodities, 
as vines, began to be planted ; that they had confirmed a 
peace and league with the Indian king, " whereby not only 
a great trade and commerce with them hereafter for corn 
and other commodities is like to ensue, and good means 
also for converting them to Christianity and to draw them 
to live among our i:>eo'ple, but fit occasions likewise of 
further discoveries up into the country, both for the find- 
ing of the south seas and certain mines, yet will undoubt- 
edly conduce to the great honour and enlargement of the 
general plantation in a short time." 

The relations of the three several voyages made the last 



418 UNDER THE COMPANY 

summer by Marmaduke Rayner, Ensign Savage, and Mr. 
Dermer were also sent by this ship. One of the " divers 
letters " was written by George Thorpe. " He testified to 
the plentiful coming up of the cotton seed," etc. " Attri- 
buted the illsuccess of things to the not seeking of God's 
glory in converting the Natives, which he said were peace- 
able and wanted but meanes. No man can justly say that 
this country is not capable of all those good things that 
you [the Virginia Company] in your wisedomes, with great 
charge, have projected, both for her wealth and honour, 
and also all other good things that the most opulent parts 
of Christendome do afford, neither are we hopeless that 
this country may also yield things of better value than any 
those." Another letter was from Rev. Jonas Stockton 
(who had but recently arrived in Virginia on this same 
ship), in which he says " that he found no probability by 
fair meanes alone to draw the savages to goodnesse, and 
if Mars and Minerva went hand in hand, they would effect 
more good in one houre, then these verball Mercurians in 
their lives : and till their Priests and Ancients have their 
throats cut, there is no hope to bring them to conversion." 
The letter was to Master Whitaker, probably a relative of 
the late Rev. Alexander Whitaker. This was the old idea 
of 1609, for the " old soldiers trained up in the Nether- 
lands, to square and prepare them to our Preachers hands;" 
and of Rev. Alexander Whitaker, who also drew the hue 
on their priests ; but Dale evidently drew no lines ; nei- 
ther did Gates ; and I doubt if Yeardley, left to his own 
judgment, would have done so. The idea of the old com- 
manders had been to clear them out from the river region. 
Yeardley was still captain of Southampton Hundred as 
well as governor of Virginia, and resided for at least a part 
of the time at his mansion-house (on the north side of 
James River, about two miles above the present Sandy 
Point) in that hundred. A few records remain of the 
courts held at Bermuda Hundred, Jamestown, and South- 
ampton Hundred ; also some warrants, some grants and 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1621 419 

deeds for land by the governor and Council ; but there 
has been very little preserved relative to events in Vir- 
ginia during this year. The General Assembly may have 
met, but I have found no record of it. 

The Abigail (350 tons), the ship of Mr. Bland, Mr. 
Wiseman, etc., under Captain Samuel Each, which left 
England in February with 230 people, probably arrived in 
June. The letter from the Council in England to the 
governor of Virginia, sent by this ship, was written by Sir 
Edwin Sandys ; Captain Roger Smith and Captain Madi- 
son returned to Virginia in her ; the company in England 
had " confirmed their old patent to Sir Richard Wors- 
ley, Natli^ Basse, John Hobson, Anthony Olevan, Richard 
Wiseman, Robert Newland, Robert Gyver, and Wm Wellis, 
associates and fellow-adventurers with Capt. Christoj)her 
Lawne deceased, with all manner of privileges therein con- 
tained and that the said plantation shall from henceforth 
be called the Isle of Wight's plcmtati07i, provided that the 
heirs of the said Christopher Lawne be no way prejudiced 
thereby ; and in regard of the late mortality of the per- 
sons transported heretofore by the said Captain Lawne, the 
Court hath likewise given them till midsummer 1625, to 
make up their number of the said persons mentioned in 
their former patents." The ship brought some emigrants 
to this plantation, some tenants for the company's lands, 
etc. ; it also brought the news that Sir Francis Wyatt had 
been chosen governor to succeed Yeardley ; copies of " the 
printed book of instructions for making fit rooms for silk 
worms," of the broadside of November 25, 1620, etc., for 
distribution in Virginia, etc. This broadside ends : " Of 
all which our hopes are now greater than ever, it having 
pleased the Divine power to blesse our late endevours with 
so extraordinary successe, as well in the safe and speedy 
passage of our Ships, as in the healthinesse and contented- 
nesse of the people transported in them." 

While Captain Samuel Each, of the Abigail, was in Vir- 
ginia, he " made tryal of those banks that lye out in James 



420 UNDER THE COMPANY 

river near Blunt Point, and found that a block-house or 
fort might be erected upon them, which would altogether 
forbid the passage of ships any higher." 

The company, in November, 1620, agreed to pay Thomas 
Wood for every cow of our EngHsh breed transported by 
" him or his agents safe and sound to Virginia £11, and 
for every she goat <£3 10s, upon certificate at his return 
from the governor there," and possibly he shipped some 
kine to Virginia in one of " the two ships out of Ireland," 
which went to the colony this year ; but I have found no 
particulars of the voyages. 

Mr. John Ferrar sent his ship, the EUinor, of 30 tons, 
from England, in May, 1621, with ten emigrants, to Vir- 
ginia, Captain William Tucker and Henry Gates being 
his factors thereon, with whom he had some suit in settling. 
The large supplies intended to be sent in the spring did not 
leave England until the fall. 

Owing to the favorable reports of the abundance of corn 
on the eastern shore and of the thriftiness of the Indians, 
made by Captain John Martin and Ensign Savage in 1619, 
a trade was opened and continued with those eastern In- 
dians. In 1621 Governor Yeardley laid out some of the 
company's land on the eastern shore. Captain John Wil- 
cocks had located his dividend at a place called " Aco- 
mack," and in the fall of 1621 Mr. John Pory located the 
secretary's land adjoining thereto, the better to secure and 
assist each other, and settled ten men thereon as tenants. 
The company also planted one hundred tenants thereon, 
according to the records in England, which are generally 
exaggerated in such matters. Pory says that " having 
taken a muster of the companies tenants ; he went with 
Estinien Moll, a Frenchman, to Smith's lies, where was 
our salt-house, to find a convenient place to make salt in ; 
not far of we found a more convenient place and so re- 
turned to Jamestown." This was probably in September, 
1621. Pory wrote a narrative of this, and of several sub- 
sequent voyages of his, to the Earl of Southampton, which 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1620 — NOVEMBER 28, 1G21 421 

was used by several contemporary writers and others of 
later dates, and which it seems was printed, but I have 
failed to find a copy. 

At a court held in 1635 in Northampton (Accomac) 
County, Virginia, it is recorded : " Forasmuch as Henry 
Williams did make it appear that he had lived on his land 
20 years, and did much service for the country, it was certi- 
fied to the governor and Council," etc. At a court held in 
1643 in the same county, " a deed for land was recorded, 
granted by Sir John Harvey on Feby 20*^ 1639 to Henry 
Williams because he was an ancient planter in the time of 
Sir Thomas Dale as evidenced by a grant to him from The 
Treasurer and Company in 1618." Williams came to Vir- 
ginia on the Treasurer in 1615, and may have settled at 
Dale's Gift, near Cape Charles, in that year, but I doubt if 
he meant that he had resided on the eastern shore for 
twenty consecutive years. In 1625 he was living on his 
land in the corporation of Charles City. I doubt if the 
settlement at Dale's Gift was permanent (continuous). I 
am inclined to think that Ensign Thomas Savage was the 
first permanent settler on the eastern shore of Virginia, 
but the data are very meagre. At a court held in 1668 
in the same county : " About Esquire Yardley's and John 
Savage's land — The deposition of Wm. Jones aged 59, 
sayeth. That ' being at the house of the late Col Robins 
about 35 years since (when Laughing King came annually 
to visit him in the Spring) was desired by Col. Robins to 
ask the said King, whose land such a neck of land was? 
He replied, that he had given that neck-of-land from Wis- 
saponson Creek to Hungars Creek to Sir George Yardley, 
and the south side of Wissaponson to his son Thomas New- 
port [that is, Thomas Savage].'" The date of this gift 
was probably in 1621 ; but Savage's interest on the eastern 
shore probably began prior to 1619. 



ENGLAND, FROM EASTER COURT, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 

EENBY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TREASURER ; MR. JOHN 
FERRAR, DEPUTY-TREASURER 

At the Easter court the old officers generally were re- 
elected ; but as " Mr Briggs [one of the auditors] was now 
gone to Oxford to abyde Mr Gibbs was chosen in his place." 
Two shares were confirmed to Mr. Bonnell for his pains in 
procuring the Frenchmen now in Virginia from Languedoc 
for the company. Mr. George Sandys was elected to be 
treasurer in Virginia, and Captain William Newce, marshal. 
Each of them was then elected to the Council in England 
and to the Council of State in Virginia, and to each office 
(treasurer and marshal in Virginia) was allotted 1500 acres 
of land and 50 tenants. Mr. Oldsworth, who had been a 
justice of the peace in England, was added to the Council 
of State in Virginia. In regard of the extraordinary well 
deservings of Sir Edwin Sandys, he was given twenty shares. 
Captain John Smith petitioned the court for some reward 
for the services which, "as he allegeth," he performed in 
Virginia, and was referred to the committees appointed for 
rewarding of men upon merits. Captain Matthew Somers 
was granted a patent for a particular plantation, on which 
he proposed to plant 100 persons. Mr. Richard Norwood, 
being recommended by Captain Daniel Tucker, was chosen 
for a surveyor in Virginia. " Shares given upon merit, not 
to be sold or transferred." 

May 13, in the House of Commons, the tobacco question 
(Roe's patent, etc.) was again debated. On the 26th, " Sir 
Edwin Sandys reported the Bill for Tobacco. The commit- 
tee hath yielded to give the Patentees to the 1** of October 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 423 

for restraint of importation of Tobacco foreign, &c. Lib- 
erty given to set tobacco in England to be used by the 
planter — not for sale. That they have already erected in 
Virginia 3. or 4. Iron Works which cost the Company 
<£4,000. No better Iron in the world. And hopes of as 
good silk to be made there as in Persia, because the best 
mulberry trees grow there. 

" The Bill with the Amendments, twice read." The 
governor and Council in Virginia had sent by the Temper- 
ance, about February 1, 1621, a petition to the king against 
this patent. The date of its arrival in England I do not 
know ; but it was not presented ; and the reason afterwards 
assigned for this was that before it was received Parliament 
had given the plantation liberty to bring in their tobacco. 

At the Trinity term quarter court, June 23, Mr. Christo- 
pher Davison was chosen to succeed Pory as secretary, and 
was also appointed to the Council of State in Virginia. 
The several cities and towns, and the companies of London, 
were to be requested " to plant the lands due them in Vir- 
ginia with people, a full account of the whole transac- 
tions of the lotteries to be made off and presented to the 
king." Captain William Claiborne was agreed with to go to 
Virginia as surveyor. Mr. Edmond Hakluyt (son of Rev. 
Richard Hakluyt) passed two shares to John Moore. Am- 
brose Wood received four shares as heir to his brother 
Thomas Wood, deceased, and one share more for the ad- 
venture of his person. Joice Lodge was allowed one share 
and fifty acres for a personal. 

On May 10 Sir Edwin Sandys had submitted a proposi- 
tion to the lower house of Parliament " to send away a 
great number of our poor people into Virginia, at the com- 
mon charge of the parishes where they live, which offer was 
accepted of that house with a very great and grateful 
applause. Whereupon the Virginia court of June 23'^'^ 
agreed a bill should be drawn to that effect against the 
next session of Parliament, and entreated Sir Dudley Diggs, 
Sir Edwin Sandys, and Sir John Danvers, to take some 



424 UNDER THE COMPANY 

pains in the drawing of the said bill." Three days after 
this Sandys was arrested, and I cannot find that the bill 
was presented. 

On May 16, 1621 (four days after the meeting in the 
Exchequer chamber), the Mayflower returned to England, 
and the New England Company learned that the Pilgrims 
and other Mayflower emigrants, sent to South Virginia 
under authority derived from the popular charters, had 
been landed within their bounds. These colonists had no 
grant from that company authorizing them to settle there, 
and the company acknowledged this fact by issuing what is 
known as " the First Plymouth Patent," on June 11, 1621, 
to the same John Pierce to whom the Virginia Company 
had granted the patent (with which they sailed) in Feb- 
ruary, 1620. Between the departure and the return of the 
Mayflower, the two colonization companies had become, 
under their agreement of November, 1620, mutually inter- 
ested in protecting these fisheries from interlopers ; and 
whether the landing of the Pilgrims in New England was 
by policy or by providence, the Virginia Company, as a 
body, must have been more disposed to aid than to oppose 
the transaction ; for the actual settling of a plantation 
within the bounds of the grant was necessary to secure 
the title, and to strengthen their case against interlopers. 
In the official report of the ships sent out by the Virginia 
Company in 1620, the Mayflower is included ; but I have 
found no actual protest in their records against the land- 
ing of ships and emigrants in New England. Sandys, 
who was mainly instrumental in sending them to Virginia, 
may have done so ; but he was soon put in the toils and 
debarred from proceeding in these matters. The captain, 
Thomas Jones, and the pilot, John Clarke, remained in the 
employment of the Virginia Company. They did not 
oppose, so far as I can find, the granting of the first 
Plymouth patent in lieu of their patent to Pierce. Of the 
five known signers to this patent, Warwick and Sheffield 
were then members of the Virginia Council. Gorges 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 425 

himself was a member of botli companies ; and CoUingwood, 
the " clerke," who attested the instrument, was really then 
the secretary of the Virginia Company. The Virginia 
court did not even revoke the original Pierce patent, but 
soon after his Plymouth patent was sent to New England 
they gave him the option of using his Virginia patent in 
Virginia if he wished to do so. 

The colonization companies were coming to an accord, 
but the contest as to jurisdiction between the crown and 
the Commons continued. During the vacation of Parlia- 
ment and two days after the arrest of Sandys (the champion 
of the Commons), on June 28, the Privy Council again 
took the Cape Cod fishery case in hand, confirmed the 
orders of Lenox and Arundell of March 26, and of the 
Council Board of July 31, 1620, and further ordered " that 
both the Southern and Northern Colonies should have 
freedom of the shore for drying of their fish, and to have 
wood for their necessary uses, by the assignment of the 
governors at reasonable rates. Lastly that the patent of 
the Northern Plantation shall be renewed according to the 
premises, and those of the Southern Plantation to have a 
sight thereof before it be engrossed. And the former pa- 
tent to he delivered into the hands of the patentees.'^ The 
crown was now showing its hand ; Sandys, who had ap- 
pealed to the Commons, had been arrested, the proposed 
new Virginia patent had been suppressed, and Sir Ferdi- 
nando Gorges and his party, who had appealed to the 
crown, were at last to have their patent delivered to them. 
And this was probably done on that day, June 28, 1621. 

The Fortune, the first ship sent out under this patent, 
was at once made ready, and finally sailed from England 
early in August, carrying emigrants and the first patent 
to the colony at Plymouth, which Weston wrote to Carver 
was " the best we could do, better than your former, and 
with less limitation." This Plymouth j)atent enabled the 
Pilgrims to remain in New England. It conveyed to them 
the first legal right to make a settlement there. 



426 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The Virginia court of July 20 gave Captain Isaac Mad- 
ison two shares ; Mrs. Christopher Newport, the widow of 
"our Captaine," thirty-five shares (being the largest number 
of shares given any one), and Thomas Webb was allowed 
three shares. 

At the Virginia court, July 26, Dr. John Potts, upon the 
recommendation of Dr. Gulstone, was chosen to succeed 
Dr. Bohun as " physician generall " to the company in 
Virginia. Having been informed of the deaths of Dr. 
Bohun, Mr. Oldsworth, and Mr. Tracy, of the Council of 
State in Virginia, the court now appointed, in their places, 
" Dr. John Potts, Mf Leech, Rev. Mf Paulett and Captain 
Roger Smith, to be as provisional counsellors till they may 
receive confirmation at the next quarter court, and their 
names be inserted in the commissions." Rev. Francis Bol- 
ton had previously agreed to go as minister, and at this 
court the Rev. Hawte Wyatt, a brother to the governor, en- 
tered into a like agreement. 

Sir Thomas Roe and others had farmed the importation 
of tobacco, which, as we have seen, met with so much op- 
position, at .£15,500. At the end of their first year they 
determined to surrender their contract. On July 31, 1621, 
Buckino-ham wrote to Lord Treasurer Cranfield : " The 
King's rent of £15,500 for tobacco, is in danger to be 
lost, or at best to decline much, and all the money spent 
about the plantations of Virginia and Burmoothes will be 
lost, if there be not some present course taken to restrain 
the planting of tobacco, here in England." The contract 
was finally given to Mr. Jacob, but at a less sum. 

The great preparations which the company had been 
making for sending their new governor to Virginia were 
now completed. The court of August 3 signed and sealed 
duplicates of the following : Commissions to the governor 
(Wyatt), to the treasurer (George Sandys), to the secretary 
(Davison), and to Mr. John Pountis to be vice-admiral of 
Virginia, as also the instructions to each of them. " An 
ordinance and constitution of The Treasurer, Council and 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621— JUNE 1, 1622 427 

Company in England for a Council of State and General 
Assembly in Virginia," was also signed ; but this was pro- 
bably the same as the original ordinance of November 28, 
1619, with the names of the present governor and Council 
of State inserted. At this court Mr. Anthony Withers 
was admitted, and Francis Carter passed one share to Row- 
land Truelove and one to Tobias Cooper. 

At a general court on August 4 the company's letter 
to the colonial authorities in Virginia was signed. Cap- 
tain Wilham Norton and others entered into an agreement 
to set up a glass-furnace within three months after their 
arrival, and to be ready to sail in fourteen days. On 
August 6 there was a meeting of the magazine adven- 
turers ; present, Mr. Alderman Johnson, Sir John Wolsten- 
hohne, Mr. Deputy Ferrar, Mr. Wroth, Mr. Wrote, Mr. 
Gibbs, and many others. Sir Francis Wyatt sailed, within 
a day or so after, in the George, with another ship, proba- 
bly the Charles, in consort. 

In July, 1621, Jesse de Forest, in behalf of certain Wal- 
loons and French residing in the Netherlands, who were 
desirous to go into Vii-ginia, presented a petition to Sir 
Dudley Carleton, the ambassador of Great Britain at the 
Hague, which he inclosed in a letter of July 29 to Secre- 
tary Calvert, expressing himself as favoring the project. 
He also wrote at the same time to Sir Dudley Digges, of 
the Virginia Council : " Here are in these countries sixty 
famihes and upwards, men of all trades and conditions, 
Walloons and French, all of the Reformed Religion, who 
desire to go into Virginia, and to this purpose have em- 
ployed one unto me with their demands and signatures, 
which I now send into England to Mr. Secretary Calvert, 
to acquaint his Majesty therewith ; and if his Majesty like 
thereof, these men will send one expressly into England to 
treat with our Virginia Company, to which they may sui*ely 
be of singular use, if some equal conditions may be found 
out for their transport thither." 

Secretary Calvert referred the petition to his Majesty's 



428 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Council for Virginia, who sent in their reply signed by 
John Ferrar, deputy, August 21. This petition came in 
at a bad time, in the long vacation, and just after large 
and expensive supplies had been sent to Virginia. It was 
at once sent by Calvert to Carleton, inclosed in a letter in 
which he writes : " I moved his Majesty concerning the 
overture made by the Walloons for planting in Virginia, 
and he was pleased to refer the proposition unto the Coun- 
cil of Virginia ; and from them he has this answer [which 
he sends to Carleton], subscribed by the Deputy of the 
Company, and as they like the answer, they may resolve to 
proceed or desist." Late in August the committee of the 
company sent a letter to the authorities in Virginia by the 
Marmaduke, in which they write : " We have received from 
his Majesty a Petition exhibiting unto him by certain 
Frenchmen and Walloons desires to inhabit in Virginia : 
We have considered of these propositions and have returned 
them so fine an answer as we consider they will resolve to 
go, they wilbe 60 families, consisting of about 300 persons, 
you may expect them coming about the next spring. We 
hope they wilbe a great strength to the Colony." 

On September 21 the committee again wrote to Virginia, 
and sent the letter by the Warwick, which sailed in consort 
with the Tiger. 

At the Virginia court of November 3 commissions were 
granted to the Bona Nova, Discovery, God's Helpe, and 
Elizabeth, to go first to Virginia, and then to make fishing 
voyages. Rev. Mr. Patrick Copland was admitted, and 
three shares o-iven him. 

o 

November 9, there was a meeting of the committee ; 
present, Mr. Deputy Ferrar, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Wrote, Mr. 
Ayers, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, and Mr. Roberts. They re- 
ported to the court the next day. They were now again 
having trouble with the king about tobacco. At the court 
Mr Deputy exhorted the Company not to be discouraged 
for he hoped that God had still a hand in the protection of 
Virginia, who turned all things for the best, when divers 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621— JUNE 1, 1622 429 

other projects, formerly in their first appearance, seemed to 
tend to the very destruction of the plantation, and there- 
fore hoped that having- put their hands to the plough they 
would not now look back and be weary of well doing, for 
the action itself was such as he knew no man, but con- 
fessed it most Christian, honorable and glorious, and of 
high consequence to this Commonwealth. And though 
they might seem to have cast their bread upon the waters, 
yet after many days he doubted not but they should find it 
aofain to their o-reat Comfort. The rather in reerard their 
Lordships [the Privy Council] professed to wish the pros- 
perity of the Plantation, from whom we may not despair of 
help or redress upon further information. That albeit the 
Company's stock being well nigh exhausted, was able to do 
but little this present year for sending of people to Virginia, 
yet it pleased God to stir up so many worthy minds for the 
advancement of this noble action, as there was no less — 
within the space of these six months — than twenty sail, 
with those that were already gone, and that would after 
Christmas, set out for the plantation, whereby above one 
thousand persons will be transported, whereof near nine 
hundred went upon private men's charges." 

Anthony Gosnold, Jr., was allowed two shares for .£25 
adventured, and one share for his personal adventure ; but 
touching the merit of his person he was referred to the 
committee appointed for rewarding of men upon their good 
deservings. The court recommended the translation and 
printing (to be sent into Virginia) of the treatise on the 
making of silk, etc., written by " Mr. Bonnell the French- 
man master of the Kings' Silk-works at Oatland. One 
thousand acres allotted to a School ; Anthony Gosnold 
allowed three shares — He passed one to Robert Gosnold 
and one to Roger Castle." 

November 17, an unknown person agreed to contribute 
forty shilKngs annually for a sermon to be preached before 
the Virginia Company in Michaelmas term, and desired 
that Rev. John Davenport might preach the first sermon. 



430 UNDER THE COMPANY 

At the Virginia court of November 24, Mr. Cliurcliill 
Moore (or Moone) transferred eight shares : four to Charles 
Cratford (or Crafford), Esq., two to Richard Chetle (or 
Chedle), Esq., and two to William Wheat, Esq. ; Francis 
Carter passed one share each to the following : Robert Che- 
tonly, gent. ; James Woodcott, Rev. George Butler, Isaac 
Gold, John Kirby, Thomas Wilson, and George Cornish. 
The court ag-reed to have the annual sermon on that even- 
ing, and after the sermon it was also agreed to sup together. 
Was this the first Thanksgiving sermon and supper? 

The Michaelmas quarter court, December 1, gave two 
shares to Mr. Waterhouse ; confirmed the lands to such 
adventurers as transported Captain Norton and his people 
for setting up a glass-furnace in Virginia ; confirmed John 
Pountis as vice-admiral in Virginia for three years from 
date, and allotted 300 acres of land and twelve tenants to 
that office ; sealed nine patents to adventurers and planters 
for 1200 persons to be transported to Virginia ; commis- 
sioned the Bona Nova, the Hopewell, the Garland, and the 
Discovery to go first to Virginia, and after for a fishing 
voyage ; and approved five subscription rolls : first, for 
setting up a glass-furnace in Virginia, <£500 ; second, for 
a magazine for provisions of apparel and other necessaries 
for the colony, £1800 ; third, for sending of maids to Vir- 
ginia to be made wives, which the planters there did very 
much desire, £800 ; fourth, for the trade for furs in Dela- 
ware and Hudson rivers, etc., £900; and fifth, for the 
building of pinnaces, boats, and dwelling-houses for the 
use of the planters, ...(?). The subscribei's to these rolls 
were to receive their ratable share of profits according to 
their adventure. 

The company wrote a letter to the authorities in Vir- 
ginia on December 6, and sent it by the Discovery ; an- 
other letter, of December 15, was sent by the Bona Nova 
and Hopewell, which sailed in consort. 

On May 19, 1621, the Earl of Southampton had suc- 
ceeded Sir Thomas Smythe as governor of the Somers 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 431 

Islands Company, and the administration of that company 
was now in the hands of the Sandys party. Under the 
tobacco contract with Sir Thomas Roe and others (1620- 
21,) the Virginia and Somers Islands companies were per- 
mitted to bring only 55,000 pounds of tobacco into England, 
and therefore the Somers Islands Company was permitted 
to bring in the whole amount, and Virginia had set up a 
trade in the Netherlands for Virginia tobacco at Middel- 
burgh. On October 22, 1621, the Privy Council sent a 
message to the Virginia Company, " that it was complained 
unto that board that the Company had set up a trade at 

Amsterdam and brought thither all their commodities from 

V. • ,, 
irg-inia. 

The court of October 25 replied " that they never sent 
any commodities to Amsterdam, but for such tobacco as 
came from Virginia this year they had carried it to Middle- 
brough, being restrained by the King's proclamation and 
order from that table from bringing any into this King- 
dom this year." " And touching their Lordships pro- 
position of bringing all commodities into England," they 
replied at length, at the court of October 27, " that it was 
impossible to do this, and to be required thereto would be 
a great inconvenience and hindrance to the Plantation," 
etc., concluding, " 8, and Lastly, it is not in our j)Ower to 
conclude this great business, wherein above a thousand 
adventurers here in England and almost four thousand 
inhabitants in Virginia have their interest. 

" For the rest, they humbly beseech your Lordships to 
believe that they affect no foreign trades with any neigh- 
bour more than in case of necessity and for the better 
sustaining and advancement of the Colony ; but shall 
always endeavour such a mutual trade between England 
and Virginia as shall stand with the honour and benefit of 
both ; and so humbly desire your Lordships to conceive of 
them. That they chiefly aim at God's glory, the good 
of this Kingdom, the advancement of his Majesty's honour, 
and speedy increase of his Highness's profit and revenue. 



432 UNDER THE COMPANY 

"For which ends they have, out of their own private 
states (besides their labour and time), expended above one 
hundred thousand pounds, without return of profit or of 
any part of the principal itself to any one of the adven- 
turers to their knowledge, and yet doubt not, but by God's 
blessing, his Majesty's accustomed gracious favour, and 
your Lordships honourable furtherance, in short time to 
bring this great work to a good perfection." 

When this answer was presented to the Privy Council 
they replied " that they did not intend the Company should 
give answer touching the bringing in all their commodities, 
but only that of tobacco, whereby the King's last year's 
revenue might be still upheld. And therefore required 
the Company on Wednesday next to return their answer, 
whether they would bring in all their tobacco to England 
or none at all, or otherwise to accommodate the business 
with Mr Jacob." 

October 29, some of the company had a conference with 
Mr. Jacob (who had taken the tobacco contract for the 
year), who advised them to bring in their tobacco ; but 
they reached no definite conclusion. November 1, the com- 
mittee held a consultation over the matter, and on the 3d 
the court approved the humble answer of the Virginia Com- 
pany to the Privy Council, touching the bringing in or not 
bringing in of all their tobacco from Virginia into Eng- 
land ; which was presented to the Lords that afternoon in 
the name of the company. " They beseech the Privy Coun- 
cil for free liberty to bring into England, or not to bring 
in, their tobacco according as they shall find it most advan- 
tageous and beneficial unto the plantation." But if this 
was not satisfactory, " altho' to their own very great preju- 
dice, they will for this year restrain themselves and forbear 
to bring in any tobacco at aU from Virginia this year ensu- 
ing." But their lordships "termed it an undutiful answer, 
and commanded them on their perils to bring in all their 
tobacco." Against which " Deputy Ferrar and the rest 
alledged all the reasons that were so often in the court dis- 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621— JUNE 1, 1622 433 

cussed, of impossibility, inconveniency, and the supposed 
overthrow of the plantation." The Privy Council at once 
issued their " order against carrying the products of Vir- 
ginia to Foreign Countries before landing in England and 
his Majesty's customs paid therefor." But after the coun- 
ter arguments the order was respited for four months, 
" which time being expired to be duly kept," etc. It was 
signed by the lord archbishop of Canterbury (Abbot), 
Lord Keeper Williams, Lord Treasurer Craufield, Lord Pre- 
sident Montague, Lord Carew, Mr. Treasurer Edmondes, 
Mr. Secretary Calvert, Master of the Rolls Caesar, and Sir 
Richard Weston. 

Sir Edwin Sandys afterwards said " that he had often 
debated this proposition in private with the Lord Treasurer, 
unto whom the impossibility of bringing all in was appar- 
ently shewed in respect the commodities in Virginia had 
three several sorts of owners, viz : — First, the Company ; 
secondly, particular Hundreds belonging to adventurers in 
England ; thirdly, private planters residing in Virginia. 
Over which two latter sorts the Company had no power at 
all to restrain them by law, and divers of them having ships 
of their own, it was not in the Company's power to prevent 
them to carry their goods whither they please. But yet he 
told the Lord Treasurer that such a moderate and fair 
course might be taken as to induce them all willingly to 
bring in their commodities, namely : if his Majesty would 
be so graciously pleased as to afford them the like privi- 
leges and favour as the King of Spain did to his Colonies 
in the West Indies, viz* : that what commodities the plan- 
tations shall be able to serve this Kingdom with may be 
prohibited from being brought in from foreign parts. [San- 
dys, a free-trader in some things, was as to others a pro- 
tectionist.] Without such a qualification he said his opin- 
ion was the bringing in of all commodities was a proposition 
extremely prejudicial to the plantations." 

The report of the conduct of the tobacco, etc., case with 
the Privy Council was read to the Michaelmas quarter court 



434 UNDER THE COMPANY 

(December 1) and approved. The court was not hopeful 
of securing the demands from the crown, but thought that 
the Parliament (the Commons) might happily effect some- 
thing which might ease the company of that care and labor. 
A choice and large committee of thirty-one members of the 
company (being members of Parliament and merchants 
mostly) was appointed by this court to manage this busi- 
ness, and, under their care, the order of November 3, 1621, 
lay dormant until March, 1623. 

December 14, 1621, Lord Treasurer Cranfield wrote to 
Buckingham : " I have agreed with the farmers of tobacco 
for this year, for £8,000, and have told them to bring in 
but 60,000 lbs, and have left the Virginia and Bour- 
moothes, free to bring in without restraint, and his Majesty 
to have the benefit of the impost. . . . This is <£2,000 
more than could be gotten by the Lords at Hampton Court. 
. . . The Virginia and Burmoothes Company have no rea- 
son to complain, there being no restraint, but they left to 
free trade." 

It is curious to note that many of the same questions 
which have agitated our great re]3ublic in our day, also 
prevailed in the embryo republic of our founders nearly 
300 years ago, — free trade, protection, monopolies, free 
elections, tobacco taxes, the negro, etc. 

On December 29 (the day on which James I. adjourned 
Parliament), at a Virginia court, Francis Carter passed two 
shares to Robert Hall and one share to Richard Delbridsfe. 

The petition for the new Virginia charter (see p. 397) 
was duly presented to the king by Doncaster, and the mat- 
ter was considered by the Privy Council ; but I have found 
no evidence that the warrant asked for was ever sent by 
the king or his Council to the attorney-general, or that the 
charter was ever presented to Parhament for confirmation. 
The particulars are meagre, but it seems more than probable 
that " those new clauses," which Sandys wished to make 
" secure " by having them confirmed by Act of Parliament, 
were among the causes of coming troubles. 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 435 

On June 14, the king prorogued the Parliament to No- 
vember 30. On June 26 (during recess) the Earl of South- 
ampton, Sir Edwin Sandys, and John Selden were arrested. 
It is said that " the studies of the last two were presently 
searched for Parliament notes and papers." July 10, it 
was reported that " a proclamation was to be made to let 
the people know that Sandys is not restrained for his ser- 
vice in Parliament, but for other personal matters." The 
party was released on July 28, 1621. 

During the imprisonment of Southampton and Sandys 
the affairs of the Virsrinia courts were under the chargre of 
Sir John Danvers, aided by the two Ferrar brothers. 

Early in September, Gorges and the other managers of 
the fishing case, who placed their hopes on the crown, will- 
ingly consented for the king to grant away the northeast- 
ern portion of their New England patent, and, on Septem- 
ber 20, James I. granted to Sir William Alexander the 
patent for Nova Scotia (New Scotland) to be held of the 
Crown of Scotland, "the King's own dear native land." 
October 8, the Privy Council sent an ofi&cial letter to the 
mayors of the port towns relative to encroachments on cer- 
tain clauses in the New England charter ; requiring them 
to conform to the ordinances which had been established 
under the authority of his Majesty's letters patent, and 
ending with : " Neverthelesse it is hereby intended and soe 
ordered, that the agreement made by order of this Board 
between them of New England and Virginia shall in all re- 
spects be duly observed by either partie." The colonies 
were thus mutually interested in keeping off the outside 
" free fisher." In 1622, Captain Francis West, of Virginia, 
was commissioned by the Council of New England to expel 
interlopers from these fisheries, and the fishing vessels sent 
from the settled colony in Virginia constantly carried needed 
supplies to the early planters of New England. 

On November 6, the Privy Council wrote to Gorges and 
others, giving them authority for ordering the fishing fleet. 
And under the authority thus given them by the crown. 



436 UNDER THE COMPANY 

they soon after stayed some ships which were ready to go 
forth. But the turn of the Commons was now at hand. 

Parliament reassembled on November 30, and Mr. Mal- 
lory soon rose in the House and said that he " misseth Sir 
Edwin Sandys. Moveth we may know what is become 
of him.'' 

On the same day, Mr. Glanvyle (M. P. for Tavistock) 
" moveth to speed the Bill of fishing upon the coasts of 
America ; the rather because Sir Fer. Gorges hath exe- 
cuted a Patent sithence the Recess [the patent to Pierce 
and others sent by the Fortune]. And hath by Letters 
from the Lords of the Council stayed the ships ready to go 
forth," etc. The question was debated by Mr. Neale, Sir 
Warwick Heale (of the New England Council), Sir Edward 
Coke, and Sir Thomas Wentworth. It was ordered that 
the patent should be brought to the committee for griev- 
ances upon Friday, December 4, etc. ; but the jDatent, which 
had now been delivered to Gorges by order of the crown, 
was not brought, so the matter was again continued. 

Sir Edwin Sandys being still absent, on December 11, 
" Sir Peter Hayman and Su- James Mallory were appointed 
by the House of Commons to go into Kent, and see what 
state he is in, and if he is sick, indeed, to return his answer, 
whether he were committed and examined about anything 
done in Parliament, or about any parliamentary Business." 

Sir George Moore said : " Unworthy to live, that would 
betray the Privileges of this House. This our principal 
Freedom. Never, in all his Time, Knew greater care to pre- 
serve their Liberties than this Assembly." 

The causes for these arrests may not be certainly known. 
The Parliament was assured by Calvert that " neither San- 
dys nor Selden had been imprisoned for any Parliament 
matter." What answer was returned by Sandys from Kent 
I do not know. In Peckard's " Ferrar " it is stated dis- 
tinctly that " the matter was the Virginia business ; " that 
" Gondomar and the King had now agreed upon the de- 
struction of the Virginia Company j " that Sandys " had 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 437 

taken Selden's opinion upon tlie words of the [new] char- 
ter, and his direction how to oppose the iinderminers of it 
to the best advantage." Arthur Wodenoth's account is 
to the same effect ; that they " were committed close pris- 
oners upon private assumed suggestions, which struck some 
terrour into most undertakers for Virginia." It was also 
asserted that Sandys was " opposed to monarchical! govern- 
ment in general, and designed to make a free popular State 
in Viro-inia." 

o 

I have tried in vain to find the text of this most impor- 
tant " proposed new charter for Virginia." I could not find 
a trace of it in the records of the attorney-general, solicitor- 
general. Privy Council or anywhere else in England. The 
impression on my mind is that the contest over it was of 
the gravest character and of the greatest consequence. 
Every vestige of it seems to have been obliterated from 
the public records of England more effectually even than 
the page soon after torn from the Commons journal by the 
hands of the king. So far as I have been able to find out, 
it was never permitted really to reach Parliament. Circum- 
stances indicate that this charter which the Virginia Com- 
pany proposed to make secure by having it confirmed by 
act of the power then disposed to oppose a too arbitrary 
" monarchicall government," was even more popular than 
the charter of 1612. And that it was at least one of the 
causes of the aforesaid arrests is rendered still more prob- 
able by the fact that the result of the arrest of Sandys was 
the suppression of this charter. The effort to have the in- 
creasingly popular ideas of Sandys confirmed by Parliament 
must have been very displeasing to James I. 

It was also asserted that " Sandys was arrested for hav- 
ing spoken in Parliament in defence of the Liberty of the 
subject." The New England Charter was a Parliament 
matter. It had been objected to because it monopolized 
the trade of the New England coasts and the fishing in the 
sea. For these reasons Sandys had opposed it, because 
he felt it to be "his duty to protect the rights of the 



438 UNDER THE COMPANY 

subject against tlie encroachments of the crown." His 
remonstrance against the king's conduct towards his first 
Parhament (1604-1611) shows that he had adopted the 
principles of hberty at an early age. Mr. John Selden was 
not then a member of Parliament, and I do not know that 
he had taken any part in the controversy over the New 
England Charter ; but in the fall of 1622, Alderman John- 
son and himself assisted that company in drafting their 
new grand patent. 

On December 28, the clause in the New England Patent 
against free fishing was again being considered. On the 
same day the king sent the noted letter, which was an- 
swered " by the dim candle-light in the gloom of that 
December afternoon " by the memorable iwotestation, as- 
serting " That the Liberties, Franchises, Privileges and 
Jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted 
birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England, that 
the affairs of the King and the State, of the defence of the 
realm, and of the Church of England, the making of laws, 
the redress of grievances, are proper subjects of debate in 
Parliament ; that in handling such business every member 
of the House hath — and of right ought to \\2iYe, freedom 
of speech, and that every member hath like freedom from 
all impeachment, imiwisonment, and molestation, except hy 
the censure of the House itself.''^ 

One of the last acts of this House of Commons, on the 
last day of its sitting (December 29) was to " Request 
Mr. Treasurer [Cranfield] to influence the King to suspend 
the Patent of Sir Ferd. Gorges, which restrains fishing on 
the coasts of New England." The king adjourned the 
House on that day, and finally dissolved it at the instiga- 
tion of Gondomar. For the next two years the crown (the 
king and Council) ruled the realm, and the two colonial 
companies ruled the fishing at Cape Cod as well as they 
could. 

January 9, 1622 (N. S.), James I. went to Whitehall, 
sent for the journals of the House, and, in the presence of 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 439 

the Privy Council and of the judges, tore out with his own 
hands tJie page on which the protestation of the Commons 
was written. Gondomar regarded this open breach between 
the crown and the Commons as " the best thing that has 
happened in the interests of Spain and the Cathohc rehgion 
since Luther began to preach heresy a hundred years ago." 
It was during this session of ParHament, in connection 
with the consideration of the proposed new Virginia charter 
to be confirmed by ParHament (as a protection against the 
whims of the king), the arrest of Sandys, etc., that James 
I., under the guidance of his Privy Council (or a part of 
them) and the royal party, and, it was said, under the 
influence of Gondomar (being now convinced that the 
Vu'ginia courts were "a Seminary of Sedition"), deter- 
mined to annid the popular rights of the Virginia Company 
as soon as he could find a fair pretext for doing so. Mr. 
John Ferrar, in the Life of his brother Nicholas, which was 
left in manuscript, because it could not have been published 
at that time, refers to these matters. He says that " the 
Marquis of Hamilton and the Earl of Pembroke solemnly 
affirmed to the Earl of Southampton, that they heard Gon- 
domar say to the King : ^ That it was time for him to look 
to the Virginia Courts which were kept at the Ferrars' 
house, where too many of his Nobility and Gentry resorted 
to accompany the popular Lord Southampton, and the 
dangerous Sandys. That though they might have a fair 
pretence for their meetings, yet he would find in the end 
that Court would prove a seminary for a seditious Parlia- 
ment. That they were deep politicians, and had farther 
designs than a Tobacco plantation. That their proceedings 
in the issue might cause, if not timely prevented, occasions 
of difference between his Majesty, and his Master the King 
of Spain. For he had heard rumours, that once being 
become numerous, they intended to step beyond their 
limits ; and for aught he knew they might visit his master's 
mines. Adding, that he had occasion of late to have a 
conference with the managers concerning a ship laden with 



440 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Silver, which was cast away [this conference was in Feb- 
ruary, 1622, about the Sancto Antonio, a Spanish ship, 
wrecked on the Bermudas] ; and that he found them subtle 
men, men of high courage, men who no way regarded 
either his master [the king of Spain] or their own master 
[the king of England].' These lords, therefore, then 
advised Lord Southampton [the treasurer of the Virginia 
Company] to be upon his guard," etc. 

It was soon reported in London that " one of the de- 
mands of the King of Spain in view of the proposed alli- 
ance between Prince Charles and his daughter was that 
James I. should surrender unto Spain, Vu^ginia and the 
Bermudas and altogether quit the West Indies ; " that is, 
America. It may be that Gondomar, in prejudicing James 
I. against the Virginia courts, was trying to make it the 
easier for the king to surrender his American colonies; 
but the so long continued bartering about " the Spanish 
match " seems to have had nothing more than diplomatic 
results. 

Gondomar' s connection with the controversy between the 
crown and the Commons during the last Parliament was 
his culminating act in England. He finally left for Spain 
in May, 1622, never to return to England again. 

Each party in the Virginia Company was now accusing 
the other of being under Spanish influence, and some 
members of each party may have been ; but how far either 
party, as a party, was justified in using " Spanish influ- 
ence " as a weapon against the other is open to the ques- 
tion. In the course of time, circumstances and occasions 
produced changes in the parties themselves, and the evi- 
dence is not sufficient to enable us to draw the party lines 
clearly at all times, if at all ; but there had been for several 
years two parties within the company contending for the 
control of the company, of the tobacco trade, etc., and it 
came to pass (then as now) that each party was willing to 
use any weapon likely to aid in defeating the other. Prior 
to 1618 the managers of the enterprise seem to have 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 441 

received the support of both national parties and to have 
bent their undivided efforts toward the success of the 
movement ; but James I. had no faith in Sandys, whom he 
regarded as " a crafty man with an ambitious design," and 
he granted the Sandys party no favors. He only made a 
pretence of suppressing the New England charter and of 
granting a new patent to the Virginia Company to be con- 
firmed by Act of Parliament. Owing to the king's oppo- 
sition and " to the inquisition of the Privy Council many 
Lords and others of all ranks of the more timorous nature 
fell from the true sense and justice of the loorTc chiefly 
intended^'' and these dissatisfied and ex-members of the 
company were now forming a party which finally aided the 
court party in having the enterprise resumed by the 
crown. 

On February 7, 1622, Mr. Balmford was given two 
shares ; and Mr. Evans passed two shares to Thomas 
Newton. 

In February, 1620, " Dust and Ashes " contributed <£550 
for establishing a school for the education and conversion 
of the Indians in Virginia. On February 7, 1622, he wrote 
to the company to know what had been done in the matter, 
and promising .£450 more for the same purpose under cer- 
tain conditions. The Virginia court of February 9, 1622, 
replied that, after serious deliberation over several proposi- 
tions, it was finally concluded (in the spring of 1620), as 
best to employ " the said money together with a much larger 
sum out of the Southampton Hundred Society's purse toward 
the furnishing out of Captain Bluet and his Company, being 
eighty able, very sufficient workmen, with all manner of pro- 
visions for setting up of an iron-work in Virginia, whereof 
the profits accruing were ordered in a ratable proportion 
to be employed for the educating of thirty of the infidels' 
children in Christian religion, as the donor had required ; to 
which end they writ very effectual letters unto Sir George 
Yeardley, then Governor of Virginia, and Captain also 
of Southampton plantation, commending the work," etc. 



442 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" But Captain Bluet, dying soon after his arrival, was a 
great setting back of the u'on-work ; but a fresh supply 
had been sent thereto, and they hoped that the gentleman 
would finally receive good satisfaction." Sir Edwin Sandys 
wished that the gentleman would make himself known, so 
that there might be a meeting between him or his friends 
and the Southampton Hundred Society, that, all things 
being fully debated, some constant course might be resolved 
on and pursued to the perfecting of this most pious work. 

Late in 1618, Captain Martin Pring, of the Royal James, 
joined his fleet to Sir Thomas Dale's fleet in the East 
Indies, the whole being under Dale's chief command. At 
Dale's death, on August 19, 1619, at Masulipatam, Pring 
succeeded him in command. While his ship, the Royal 
James, was at the Cape of Good Hope, on the return to 
England, her chaplain, the Rev. Patrick Copland (whom 
Dale had interested in Virginia while they were serving 
together in the East Indies), gathered from the gentlemen 
and mariners in the said ship the sum of £10 8s 6d 
towards the building of a free school in Virginia. The 
ship reached the Downs, September 28, 1621, and Lon- 
don soon after. For his services in this matter, and for 
his letter to the same purport to diverse factories in the 
East Indies, the Virginia court, of November 3, admitted 
Mr. Copland a free brother of the Virginia Company. At 
a meetinp" of the committee on November 9, it was decided 
to use the money in the building of a school rather than a 
church ; that the school should be called the East India 
School, and located in the corporation of Charles City. An 
unknown person contributed <£30 to make the .£70 an even 
£100. The Virginia court the next day ratified the acts 
of the committee, and the quarter court of December 1 
confirmed them. The money was then paid to the Earl of 
Southampton, the treasurer, and the court added 1000 
acres of land in Virginia to the said free school. At 
the next quarter court, February 9, 1622, a " person, not 
willing as yet to be knowne," sent £25 in gold " to helpe 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 443 

forward the East Indie Schoole ; " and " the gentlemen 
and mariners that lately came home from the East Indies 
in the two ships called the Hart and Roe-Biicke, being at 
the Cape of Good Hope, homeward bound, gave towards the 
buildinof of the aforesaid Free-schoole in Virgrinia the 
summe of £66 13s 4(?," making a total of £192 Is lOd 
(|4800?). I suppose these sums to have been given as 
thank-offerings for having safely rounded the Cape. The 
Virginia court of March 23, 1622, agreed with Mr. Dike 
for the usher's place in the East India free school intended 
at Charles City, in Virginia ; and if he proved to be com- 
petent he was to be confirmed in the place of the master 
of the said school, and allowed one hundred acres of land as 
his own proper inheritance, the company to furnish books 
for the school, for which he was to be accountable, and for 
the children, for which their parents were to be answerable. 
Mr. Dike did not go, and the company had afterwards to 
make other arrangements. 

The Virginia court of December 29, 1621, took into 
their consideration Mr. John Brinsley's " Consolation for 
our Grammar Schooles," especially designed " for the more 
speedie attaining of our English tongue " by people of 
such rude countries as Ireland, Wales, Virginia, and the 
Somers Islands. 

Sir John Wolstenholme, and others of Martin's Hundred 
society, proposing to send a large supply to Virginia, a 
court was called on February 1, 1622, to advance their ob- 
ject ; and the quarter court of the 9tli renewed their patent 
according to that already given to Southampton Hundred. 

At the Somers Islands court on February 16, a committee 
was appointed to manage the matter of the land which the 
Virginia Company proposed giving them, " in consideration 
of the great defect of the quantity of Land in the Sum- 
mer-Islands." ^ 

1 It so happened that they failed to the Crown to grant them the northern 
secure this land; and in July, 1639, the neck of Virginia, in consideration of 
Somers Islands Company petitioned the premises ; but this also failed. 



444 UNDER THE COMPANY 

February 22, 1622, the mayor of Plymouth wrote to the 
lord treasurer, requesting fulfillment of his promise " that 
they may not be interrupted by Sir Ferdinando Gorges in 
their fishery for Virginia, the western ports having little 
employment for the people but in shipping." 

At the court of February 9, Captain John Martin, of 
Virginia, presented a petition signed by the earls of Pem- 
broke, Warwick, Leicester, Montgomery, and Sheffield, Sir 
Robert Mansell, Sir Thomas Smythe, Captain Francis West, 
William St. John, Robert Johnson, Samuel Argall, and 
William Canning, asking the court to confirm Martin's 
old patent unto him. The reply was made at the court 
of March 23, " refusing to do this, but saying that if he 
would surrender his old patent, a new one would be given 
him of all his land with as large and ample priviledges as 
any other hath, which favour all but himself had most 
willingly accepted of." After the Sandys administration 
came in all the old patents had been called in and altered 
to suit the views of the new officials ; but Martin continued 
to refuse to submit to this. 

At the Virginia court, February 23, 1622, Sir John Wol- 
stenholme passed three shares to John Harrison ; Sir Ed- 
mond Harwell three shares to Mr. Francis Harwell ; Mr. 
John Clarke admitted, and two shares given him ; Francis 
Carter passed two shares to Francis Goodwin, and one to 
Oliver Mordon (or Morton) ; to Mr. Thomas Bulkeley two 
shares in the right of Sir Richard Bulkeley ; and Mrs. 
Elizabeth Berkeley was allowed five and one half shares of 
<£12 10s per share. 

At the court of March 9, Hildebrand Pruson passed one 
share to Thomas Pemble; Edward Faucett three to Mr. 
Nicholas Ferrar, and Mr. Scott three to Mr. Patrick Cop- 
land. 

At the court of March 23, Captain Thomas Each was ad- 
mitted, and five shares given him ; Joane Read was allowed 
one hundred acres, due to her father, deceased ; Francis 
Carter passed one share to Philip Wood, and six shares of 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 445 

Mr. Hamor's to Thomas Melling, and Captain Hamor passed 
two shares to Henry Hutchinson. 

At the court of March 30, John Dennis was admitted. 

At the court o£ April 6, Sir Anthony Pell and his lady 
passed two shares to William Savill ; Edmond Brudenell 
two shares to Francis, his son ; Thomas Melling two shares 
to Mr. Robert Jefferyes, and Francis Carter passed nine 
shares, as follows : three to Mr. Paulsted, two to George 
Mole, gent., two to John Bowater, one to Richard Stevens, 
and one to Mr. Richard Markham. 

The company had at first chosen Richard Norwood to 
go as a surveyor to Virginia, but afterward determined to 
send him as an engineer to fortify that colony as he had 
done the Bermudas. On April 8, 1622, the earls of Pem- 
broke and of Warwick, William Lord Cavendish, Sir E. 
Sackville, William Lord Paget, Sir Edwin Sandys, Lord 
Brooke, and Sir Nathaniel Rich, of his Majesty's Council 
for Virginia, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton : " Forasmuch 
as Richard Norwood who presents this letter hath ap- 
proved himself to be a man skilful as well in setting out 
the forms of towns & fortifications as also in framinof of 
sundry useful and necessary engines, they have therefore 
thought fit and the rather for his faithful and able sermce 
to the Virginia Company heretofore, to employ him as an 
engineer in that Plantation. Nevertheless, knowing the 
Netherlands to afford store of ingenious inventions of that 
kind, they have determined before his going that he shall 
spend some few v/eeks in those parts thereby to improve 
that quality of his for the better performance of the ser- 
vice he hath undertaken. And they entreat Carleton to 
further him with passports and letters of favour for his 
more easy passage, and more free access to view such works 
as may serve for his instruction." From this letter it seems 
that he had previously done faithful service in Virginia, 
as we know that he had done in the Bermudas, and proba- 
bly of the same kind. He may have gone to Virginia with 
Argall in 1617, but I have not the particulars. 



446 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Captain John Bargrave, like many others, had lost by 
his personal ventures to Virginia. In the summer of 1618 
he brought suit against the officers of the company to re- 
cover his losses from them ; and they entered a counter 
suit against him to recover his debt due the company. The 
case went through the Virginia courts; then into chancery; 
and, in 1621, Bargrave presented to the committees for 
grievances of the lower house of Parliament, " the humble 
petition in the behalf of himself, the absent Planters in 
Virginia, &• all other adventurers that shall adventure their 
estates under a government ruled by voyces, where the 
Governor being corrupt the greatest joint stocke may by 
practize & faction & so dispose of the government as they 
may by the means of the instruments thereof monopolize 
the whole profit that shall arise out of the said adventure 
into a few private hands," etc. To this petition Sir Thomas 
Smythe and Alderman Johnson replied in November, 1621: 
" Letting pass all paine and Impertinent matter — to the 
first point material — That Sir Tho : Smith hath framed a 
tirannical government imposed upon the people in Virginia. 
" Sir Tho : Smith saith that the comissions given by him 
as Treasurer and the rest of his Majesties Councell for Vir- 
ginia, unto Sir Tho. Gates and other the governors sent 
to Virginia were never otherwise, but expreslie to rule and 
govern as near as may be according to the laws of Eng- 
land as by the said Comissions ready to be shewed may 
apeare. But if any of those printed lawes and articles to 
which the said Bargrave referreth may seem too severe as 
upon pain of death to be observed, howsoever being rightly 
weighed they are justifiable by the law# of England. Yet 
they were not framed by Sir Tho : Smith as is most un- 
truly aledged, but by those worthy governors in Virginia, 
as the very title and printed preface to the book itself sets 
down. Which laws and Articles Sir Tho: Smith was so 
far from framing or making them as in a letter written to 
Capt. Martin one of the first planters and an especial man 
at that time in Virginia, that he signified his dislike in the 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 447 

strickness thereof, fearing it would discourage men from 
going to the plantation. Yet all the said Governors, viz* : 
— tiie Lord La Warr and Sir Tho : Dale deceased as also 
Sir Thomas Gates and Capt. Argall, now living and ready 
to witness did see such a necessity that the said laws should 
be made and published in some cases ad terroreyn and in 
some to be truly executed," etc. The answer goes on to 
deny every one of Bargrave's statements. " The books of 
laws was not directed to be printed by Sir Thomas Smith 
alone but by sundry of his Majesties Councell for Virginia 
whereof many are very honorable Lords and Knights, and 
of this honorable House — That Bargrave did not plant the 
first private plantation in Va. ; or lose .£3.000 in one voyage 
there," etc. Then they made countercharges against Bar- 
grave : That his deputies unfurnished the colony of neces- 
sary provisions and furnished the Indians with arms by way 
of trade, etc., as Captain Argall was ready to testify ; that 
he owed the Company £500, and had set up this suit in 
chancery to keep from paying it, etc. " They certify that 
Sir Tho: Smith and Alderman Johnson had devoted many 
year's paines for the good of Virginia with their own dis- 
burstments and great engagements even to this day in the 
greatest disasters of that plantation, many years before 
Bargrave's name was known in that work as is ready to be 
witnessed against him, and those by whom he is animated, 
to this complaint ; and they pray this honorable committee 
to determine some way for correcting this corse and easing 
this their greevance which may be any man's case to be so 
abused if it be suffered without punishment." The case 
in chancery had been set for November 20, 1621 ; Smythe 
and Johnson had their " counsell feed and allthings ready 
for a hearing," when Bargrave succeeded in obtaining a 
new day in the next term, and they were protesting against 
" his dilatorye course " to the grievance committee of Par- 
liament, which adjourned so soon after that it is prob- 
able no steps were taken by the House. But in March, 
1622, the case was tried by Lord Keeper Williams, Mr. 



448 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Justice Jones, Sir Robert Ricli, and Sir Edward Leech, 
who, finding it matter of state, referred the petitioner 
(Bargrave) to the Privy Council. In the articles presented 
to the Privy Council, Bargrave tells them that " the -pojiu- 
lar government here by voices founded on a joynt stock 
will (if it be not prevented) lay ye foundation of ye planta- 
tion in such factions and disordered matter that will make 
it uncapeable of that form which must hould it to Eng- 
land, . . . although there hath been of late good laws 
made to prevent it, and that the government bee now in 
good hands, yet nothing but the altering of the forme 
can do it. ... I humblie intreate your Lordships aid in 
ye obtaining of a Comission from his Majestic for the 
examining restifying and ordering of the said govern- 
ment ; That thereby your petitioner may be releaved, 
the publique wrongs redressed and such a forme settled 
that doing right to all parties interested in the plantation it 
may fix the government of Virginia in a dependency on the 
crowne of England^' In his letter to the Privy Council, 
written, it seems, some days after his articles, he tells them 
that he had " endeavoured to frame a forme of government, 
to tye Virginia in a dependence on our Crowne of Eng- 
landr In his opposition to the popular form of govern- 
ment under the Virginia charters, he was as anxious to 
bring about this dependence as our Revolutionary fore- 
fathers were to dissolve it, and to restore the popidar ideas. 
He refers the Privy Council to his five treatises, which the 
Virginia courts of March 4, April 22, and June 23, 1621, 
had considered. He had now succeeded in makino; his 
case a matter of state, and on April 22, 1622, the Privy 
Council ordered the treasurer and Council of Virginia to 
make answer to his petition and articles with all convenient 
expedition. 

After the reports of Dermer's discovery of " the furr 
trade in Hudson's river " reached England, it seems that 
both the New England and Virginia companies made pre- 
parations to take advantage thereof. " Capt. Sam^ Argall 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 449 

with many English planters were preparing to go and settle 
on Manahata river, when the news reached England that 
the Dutch had intruded. Whereupon Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, and others, made complain to James I.," and on 
December 25, 1621, the Privy Council issued an order 
against the Dutch trading to New England, and wrote to 
Sir Dudley Carleton to protest unto the States General in 
his Majesty's name against the settlement and trade of the 
Hollanders in his American possessions. On February 9, 
1622, Carleton presented to the States General a memorial 
of additional complaints against the trade, etc., of their 
people in the precincts of Virginia. And, on February 
15, he reported to the Privy Council, that the Hollanders 
had a fur trade there ; but he could not learn of any 
colony either already planted there by these people, or 
so much as intended. " And I have this further reason 
to believe there is none, because within these few months 
divers inhabitants of this country to a considerable num- 
ber of families have been suitors unto me, to procure them 
a place of habitation amongst his Majesty's subjects in 
those parts ; which by his Majesty's order was made known 
to the Directors of the [Virginia] plantation, and if these 
country men were in any such way themselves, there is 
small appearance they would desire to mingle with stran- 
gers and be subject to their government." Nevertheless 
he had submitted the matter to the States General, and 
" when I shall receive their answer I will not fail to adver- 
tise your Lordships." Prior to this, Carleton had written 
to Mr. Secretary Calvert on the same subject, who replied, 
on February 17, that he remembered about the business 
of the Walloons, but " did not remember you had any 
du'ection to treat with the States concerning the new plan- 
tation of the Hollanders in Virginia." Yet Calvert's name 
is signed to the Privy Council's letter of December 25, 
1621. Carleton again applied to the States for an answer 
to his proposition relating to Virginia, and, on March 16, 
they requested Burgomaster Pauw to write to the part- 



450 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ners in the trade to tlie island of New Netherland for the 
desired information. Three days after this Carleton wrote 
to Calvert that " as yet he had no answer to the complaint, 
but they have the business in hand before the States in 
Holland which are now assembled." April 27, 1622, the 
States passed a resolution on Carleton's communication to 
the effect that it should " be examined, together Avith what 
has been pubHshed in print at Amsterdam on this subject." 
Sir Ferdinando Gorges says that the final reply of the 
States was to the effect, " that they knew of no such thing 
[as a settlement on the Hudson], if there were any, it was 
without their authority, and that they onely had enacted 
the [West India] company for the affaires of the West- 
Indies." The States had frequently authorized ships to 
trade between Virginia and New France (40° and 45° north 
latitude), which they called New Netherland, and the Dutch 
West India Company (chartered June 3, 1621) was now 
being organized. It is probable that the replies to Carle- 
ton were purposely dilatory. Before the reply to the Wal- 
loons (of August 21, 1621) from the Virginia Company in 
England was received in Holland the Dutch West India 
Company was making ready for permanent business, and 
the Walloons soon appealed to that company, probably 
because they did not " desire to mingle with strangers." 
On April 21, 1622, the company made a favorable report 
" relative to the Families to be conveyed to the West In- 
dies ; " that is, America. On August 27, Jesse de Forrest, 
the leader of the Walloons, who now wished to emigrate 
to the Dutch claim in America, was commissioned by the 
States of Holland " to enroll colonists and their families " 
for this purpose, and in 1623 they settled New Amsterdam 
(New York). 

At the Virginia courts of March 9 and 23, and of April 
6 and 13, good news from Virginia was read to the com- 
pany : of the safe arrival of Sir Francis Wyatt ; of the 
good progress of all things there ; of the safe return of the 
Marmaduke, the George, the Warwick, etc. Whereupon 



ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1621 — JUNE 1, 1622 451 

" it was resolved that a sermon should be preached to ex- 
press the company's thankfulness unto God for this His 
great and extraordinary blessing [the arrival of nine ships 
in Virginia during November and December, and the safe 
landing of 800 persons, which were sent from England and 
Ireland]. To which end the court entreated Mr. Copland, 
being present, to take the pains to preach the said sermon." 
And it was decided to have it preached in Bow Church, on 
Wednesday, the 27tli of April. It was afterwards post- 
poned for a day, and delivered on April 28, from the text, 
Psalm cvii. 22-30 : " And let them sacrifice the sacrifices 
of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing. 
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business 
in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and 
his wonders in the deep," etc. It was entered for publica- 
tion at Stationers' Hall, May 28, under the title of " Vir- 
ginia's God be thanked." Was this the second thanks- 
giving sermon ? 

The court of May 18 appointed Mr. Bland, Mr. Casewell, 
Mr. George Smith, and Mr. Mellinge to dispose of the 
company's tobacco brought home in the George. It was 
to be sold in England. They proposed employing Rev. 
Robert Staples to go as a minister to Virginia, if he gave 
good testimony of his sufficiency by a sermon which was to 
be preached before them at St. Scythe's Church. They 
agreed with Captain Samuel Each of the Abigail for an- 
other voyage to Virginia, to take Lady Wyatt there, and 
to erect a fort on a bar near Blunt Point in James River. 
In reply to the request of Lord President Montague of the 
Privy Council in behalf of a kinsman of his now going to 
Virginia, the court ordered a letter to be written to the 
governor of Virginia in his favor. 

At the Virginia court. May 13, Henry Wolstenholme 
passed three shares to John Wolstenholme ; Francis Carter, 
two shares to George Brookes, and Ambrose Wood two 
shares to Nathaniel Etherington or Eldrington. 

At the court of May 18, Clement Wilmer passed two 



452 UNDER THE COMPANY 

shares to George Wilmer, and Francis Carter one share to 
Henry Wentworth. I have an idea that the shares were 
passed by Francis Carter in his official capacity. Possibly 
they had been forfeited by former owners after paying for 
them in part. 

At a preparative court, May 30, Lord De la Warr and 
the lady, his mother, passed five personal shares to John 
Parkhurst ; Sir Henry Mainwaring passed five shares to 
his brother, Thomas Mainwaring, Esq., of the Inner Tem- 
ple ; Sir Samuel Sandys, one share to his son, Sir Edwin 
Sandys ; William Felgate, citizen and skinner of London, 
one share to his brother, Tobias Felgate of Ratcliffe, mari- 
ner ; Philip Jacobson, one share to his younger brother, 
James ; and Francis Carter passed one share to " Mr. 
Thomas Addison of Lincoln's Inn, in the county of Mid- 
dlesex, Esq." " Pharao Flinton, a surgeon, petitioning for 
restoring the land given him by Sir Geo. Yeardley then 
governor, in reward of his services, which he says has been 
since taken away by Roger Smith. It was ordered that he 
should have ground elsewhere." 

The Easter quarter court, the end of the Earl of South- 
ampton's second term, fell on June 1, 1622. 



VI 

VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 
SIB FBANCIS WYATTS FIRST YEAB AS GOVEBNOB 

Sir Francis Wyatt was the first, and, it so happened, 
the only governor sent to the colony in Virginia by any 
other administration of the company in England than that 
of Sir Thomas Smythe. He was sent out as well equipped 
in every way as possible, the officials in England feeling 
confident that he would faithfully carry out their ideas; 
and their sincere thanks for the knowledge of the safe 
arrival of his fleet in Virginia can be very readily under- 
stood and fully appreciated. At least four of these ships 
arrived before Sir George Yeardley's term as governor had 
expu'ed ; namely, the George, the Marmaduke, the Charles 
(of 120 tons, left England with 80 persons, some brass 
pieces, etc.), and the Temperance (80 tons, with 50 persons). 
Sir William Newce, marshal, and Mr. Michael Lapworth, 
arrived in one of these ships. 

Governor-elect Wyatt arrived on the George (180 tons, 
Mr. Wiseman's ship, William Ewens, master, with 120 per- 
sons), by which ship the Council in England sent to 
Governor Yeardley a letter dated August 4, 1621, telling 
him that "they had sent Sir Francis Wyatt to be the future 
governor ; Mr. George Sandys to be the Treasurer in Va. 
[an official which had been asked for by the General 
Assembly of August, 1619] ; Mr. Christopher Davison to 
be Secretary ; ^ Rev. Mr. Hawte Wyatt to be preacher to 
the governor's tenants; Rev. Mr. Bolton for Elizabeth City 

^ Son of Secretary William Davi- brothers, Francis and Walter, were 
son, the friend of Elder Brewster, poets, and he was a poet himself. 
He entered Gray's Inn in 1597. His 



454 UNDER THE COMPANY 

to inhabit with Capt. Tho. Newce ; D"? John Potts for the 
Physition's place with two Chirurgions and a chest of 
Phisicke and Chirurgery; Mr Wm Claiborne to be sur- 
veyor (first to set out the public lands [3000-acre tracts], 
next lands belonging to public officials or places [1500- 
acre tracts], next particular Plantations, and then that 
of private persons — these last to pay him 6 shillings per 
day) ; Mr John Pountis to be Vice-Admirall in Virginia." 
They urge him to aid Mr John Berkeley and his son 
Maurice about the iron-works ; the Dutchmen about the 
saw-mills ; " exceedingly approve the course in taking in of 
Indian families into the homes of the colonists, as being 
a great means to reduce that nation to civility, and to the 
imbracing of our Christian religion;" thank Mr. Thorpe for 
his letters and his " endeavours upon those staple comodities 
of wine and silk ; " thank Captain Thomas Newce for his 
past services and add 300 acres to make the allotment of 
1500 acres for his office ; tell of their determination to send 
a ship to trade for furs in Hudson and De la Warr rivers ; 
urge the building of guest-houses ; commend and reward 
Lieutenant Whitaker for building one the last year ; beg him 
to assist Captain William Norton in erecting glass-works. 
"Hoping you will not fail in the least, but deliver up 
to your successor Sir Francis Wyatt, or in case he dye to 
such a one as by the Counsell in Virginia shall be chosen 
at the expiration of your comission, the comand of the 
Colony in good and flourishing estate, and much better in 
condition than when you found it," etc. Signed by the 
Earl of Southampton, Mr. Deputy Ferrar, Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Dr. Anthony, Dr. Gulstone, Dr. Winston, Mr. Nicholas Fer- 
rar, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Wrote, and Mr. Wroth. 

The Marmaduke (100 tons, Marmaduke Rayner, captain, 
John Dennis, master, with 80 persons) also brought a letter 
to the authorities in Virginia, dated August 31, 1621, 
" sent by Mr. Leech, duplicates of their last letter, of the 
Instructions and commissions ; sent by this ship one widow 
and eleven maids for wives, at the expences of the Earl of 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 455 

Southampton and others — every man that marries one to 
ffive 120 lbs of best leafe Tobacco for her, and in case 
any of them dye [before marriage] that proportion must be 
advanced to make it up to upon those that survive, they not 
to be married to servants, but only to such freemen or ten- 
ants as have means to maintain them ; " urges the officials 
to be as fathers to them and make " their condition so 
much better as multitudes may be allured thereby to come 
unto you;" commend to their care "Capt. \Vm. Norton and 
his Italians, who go by this ship ; also twelve lustie youths 
for Martin's Hundred." As in all their letters they urge 
the finding of other staple commodities than tobacco. They 
send copies of the letters and agreements with Mr. Gookin 
about cattle, and tell of their hopes to send some families of 
Walloons the next spring. Signed by Lord Sheffield, Sir 
John Danyers, Mr. Samuel Wrote, Mr. John Ferrar, Dr. 
Thomas Winston, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, and Mr. Thomas 
Sheperd. 

Sir George Yeardley's term expired November 28, 1621, 
and Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded him on that day. Among 
the documents brought from England by him were his own 
commission and the commissions of the sundry recently 
appointed officials ; a copy of a treatise of the plantation 
business, etc. (said to have been written by George Ruggle), 
recommended to the councilors to study ; instructions to 
the governor and the Council of State in Virginia, con- 
sisting of forty-seven articles, and signed by the Earl of 
Southampton, Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Danvers, and 
others of the Council ; an ordinance and constitution of the 
treasurer, Council, and company in England for a Council 
of State and General Assembly, dated August 3, 1621. 
(The original was of November 28, 1618.) The Coun- 
cil of State inserted were : Sir Francis Wyatt, governor ; 
Captain Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, Sir William 
Newce (marshal of Virginia), Mr. George Sandys (trea- 
surer), Mr. George Thorpe (deputy of the college), Captain 
Thomas Newce (deputy for the company), Mr. Paulett, Mr. 



456 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Leecli, Captain Nathaniel Powell, Mr. Christopher Davi- 
son (the secretary), Dr. Potts (the physician to the com- 
pany in Virginia), Mr. Roger Smith, Mr. John Berkeley, 
Mr. John Rolfe, Mr. Ralph Hamor, Mr. John Pountis, 
Mr. Michael Lapworth, Mr. Harwood, and Mr. Samuel 
Maycock. 

Monthly courts had been instituted by Yeardley in 1619 
under the civil law ordinance of 1618. In addition to the 
old ordinance, it was now appointed that the Council o£ 
State in Virginia " should assemble four times a year, 
to hold quarterly sessions [courts] for one whole week, 
to assist the Governor, as well in matter of Council as of 
State, and in all causes of importance, as also for redress 
of general and particular grievances." These first quarterly 
colony courts in Virginia were held in winter, spring, sum- 
mer, and fall terms, as the quarterly company courts in 
England, but they did not meet on the same dates, and 
they continued in session longer. A few of the early 
records of these courts have been preserved for us, and 
these are now being printed in " The Virginia Historical 
Magazine," in order to preserve them for our posterity. 

The copy of the old ordinance now preserved at Long- 
leat. County Wilts, England, has the following contem- 
porary marginal note in explanation of its last clause : 
" After the settlement of the countrie noe Appeales to be 
made from the Assembly nor noe orders shall bind the said 
colony, unlesse they shall be ratyfyed ' & confirmed by the 
General Assembly." The last humble suit of the first 
General Assembly (1619) had been that the Council and 
company would be pleased to make good their promise set 
down in this clause, so soon as they shall find it conve- 
nient. 

At the Virginia court in London, on November 14, 1620, 
Sir Edwin Sandys urged the necessity for suppressing the 
inordinate excessive planting of tobacco, and the substitu- 
tion therefor of other commodities, and suggested that a 
committee of merchants might be appointed to set good 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 457 

prices on such other commodities as the country might pro- 
duce. On November 25, Mr. Deputy Ferrar presented to 
the Earl of Southampton the hst rated particularly by the 
committee at such prices " as they are now sold at here in 
England." They were requested to again revise the list 
and to make it more favorable to the planters in Virginia. 
This was done from time to time, and the list was finally 
published as a broadside, copies of which were brought 
over to Virginia by Wyatt, as well as of the various other 
recent publications of the company. The list is more ex- 
tended than that of 1610 ; ^ but it does not give the price 
for tobacco, sassafras, or maize. Iron was <£10 the ton ; 
hemp, 10s to 22s the hundred ; flax, 20s to 30s the hun- 
dred ; cotton wool, eightpence the pound ; hard pitch, 6s 
the hundred ; tar, 5s the hundred ; turpentine, 12s the 
hundred ; rosin, 5s the hundred ; masts for shipping, 10s 
to <£3 a piece ; pot-ashes, 12s to 11:S the hundred ; soap- 
ashes, 6s to 8s the hundred ; clapboards, watered, 30s the 
hundred ; pipe-staves, £4 the thousand ; sumac, 7s the hun- 
dred, " whereof great plenty in Virginia and good quan- 
tity will be vented in England ; " sables, 8s to 20s a pair ; 
other skins, 3s to 5s each ; luzernes, 2s to 10s each ; 
martens, the best, 4s ; wild-cats, 18 J ; fox-skins, 6d ; musk- 
rat skins, 2s a dozen, " and the cods of them will serve for 
good perfumes ; " beaver skins new in season, 7s each ; old 
skins, 6s the pound, etc. 

Many of the instructions to the governor and Council 
are repeated in the official letters. The first article was to 
the effect that in religion they were to conform to the dis- 
cipline of the Church of England as near as may be ; that 
laws were to be administered to all as near as could be to 
the forms and Constitution of England, and that the people 
should be kept in due obedience to the king of England. 

Sir Edwin Sandys, on July 17, 1620, when considering 
the new laws, orders, and constitutions which they were 
about to prepare for Virginia, " put the Va. Council in 

1 The Genesis of the United States, pp. 384-386. 



458 UNDER THE COMPANY 

mind of one principal part of their duty and oath, to have 
care, by wise and politic constitutions, to hold the colony 
in assuredness of firm and perpetual loyalty to his Majesty 
and this crown, which caution, in regard of the far distance 
of that place, I hold to be necessary." Under the popular 
charters drafted by him, every emigrant to the colony was 
required to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy. 
Yet, notwithstanding these things thus purposely given to 
the public, and although himself and the other managers 
of the enterprise were of the Church of England, the idea 
that the colony would finally drift away from England if 
allowed to continue under the popular charters, had been 
growing since 1612. This idea was now being seriously 
considered by the Privy Council, and becoming a factor 
in the politics both of the crown and of the Commons. 
For although Sandys was of the Church of England and a 
lover of his country, he also favored toleration, and was an 
advocate of civil and religious hberty ; and although these 
ships brought these articles, signed by him, they also brought 
to Virginia the news of his recent arrest and the various 
reports of the reasons therefor. 

Governor Wyatt at once called a General Assembly, 
which met early in December (N. S.). The complete records 
have not been found, but it was chiefly devoted to carrying 
out the instructions recently received from England; en- 
couraging the cultivation of other commodities than tobacco ; 
prescribing rules for planting mulberry-trees, for prevent- 
ino" those growing from destruction, and for making silk ; 
for planting vines and making wine, etc. James I., who 
thought that the growing of tobacco was a mismanagement, 
was then taking an especial personal interest in the making 
of silk and wine in Virginia. He felt confident that they 
would become most valuable commodities to the colony. 
The Assembly also authorized the building of an inn at 
Jamestown for the better entertainment of newcomers. 

In November, 1620, the company had agreed to pay Mr. 
Daniel Gookin (Goggin, Cockin, Cockayne, etc.) and Mr. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 459 

Thomas Wood "to transport from Ireland to Virginia, after 
the rate of <£!!, the heifer of the EngHsh breed, and she 
goats at £3 10s a piece." In July, 1621, Mr. Gookin de- 
sired that the words of the agreement might be more clearly 
explained. This the company did ; and, according to his 
request in his letter, they agreed that he should have a 
patent for a particular plantation as large as that granted 
to Sir William Newce. On December 2, 1621, " he landed 
in Virginia wholy uppon his owne adventure " forty young 
cattle well and safely, and fifty men, besides some thirty 
other passengers. " According to their desire the Governor 
seated them at New Porte Newce, and he conceived great 
hope if this Irish plantation prospered that from Ireland 
great multitude of people wilbe like to come hither." 

Captain Thomas Newce, Sir William Newce, and Mr. 
Daniel Gookin came to Virginia from Newce's Town, 
county Cork, Ireland ; but they were natives of England ; 
I suppose, though, that some of those brought over by 
them were Irish. The Newce brothers proposed bringing 
over great numbers and forming a settlement. They had 
located in the corporation of Elizabeth City, evidently at a 
place called by them " New Porte ^ Newce," where Gookin 
joined them, and kept up the plantation after they died. 
Gookin came in the Flying Hart, of which ship Cornelius 
Johnson, a Dutchman of Home, in Holland, was master. 
This ship was probably the Flying Horse, of Flushing, 
which was in Virginia in 1615. 

The Warwick (160 tons, with 100 persons, under Cap- 
tain Guy, with the magazine of .£2000, under Mr. Ed. 
Blany) arrived in Virginia December 20, 1621, bringing a 
letter from the Council in England, dated September 21, 
1621, of instructions about various things ; " an extraordi- 
nary choice lot of thirty-eight maids for wives; " additional 
supplies of people for Martin's Hundred (which had been 

^ I have always found this name the last name, however, is spelled 

spelled " New porte " in original doc- " Newce," " Newse," " Nuce," etc. 

uments ; but in prints and copies it See The Genesis of the United States, 

is sometimes given as " Newports ; " p. 956. 



460 UNDER THE COMPANY 

reorganized), to be at first quartered there in Wolsten- 
holmes Town, under the oversight of Mr. Richard Keane. 
They also sent Rev. Thomas White (his passage to be paid 
by his parish, and " as for bookes, we doubt not but you 
will be able to supply them out of the libraries of so many 
that have died") ; Mr. Miles Pirkett (to make salt) ; "in 
case Mr Blaney dye, we desire Mr Pountis in particular 
to take care of his business." Signed by Edward Hawley, 
John Wolstenholme, Dr. Gulstone, Dr. Anthony, Dr. Win- 
ston, John Ferrar, Nicholas Ferrar, Robert Smith, Thomas 
Gibbs, and Thomas Sheaperd. 

The above three celebrated doctors were now the special 
councilors with reference to the health of the colony. 

The poet Drayton, in England, possibly sent his poem 
to his brother poet, George Sandys, in Virginia, about this 
time, which ends : — 

" Yet I should like it well to be the first, 
Whose numbers hence into Virginia flew, 
So, noble Sandys for this time, adieu." 

In October, Lieutenant Marmaduke Perkinson, Mr. John 
Pory, Ensign Savage, and others, made a voyage in the 
Great Bay, and then up the Potomac. During this voyage 
" they saw a China Boxe at one of the Kings houses ; " 
and the Indians led them to believe that the South Sea 
was only about one hundred and fifty miles westward from 
the Falls of the Potomac ; which agreed with the ideas of 
Mr. Henry Briggs, the famous mathematician. Pory read 
the account of Adam and Eve from the Bible to the Indian 
king ; who was imj)ressed with the story, and said he was 
like Adam in one thing, for he never had but one wife at 
once. They then returned to " the laughing king " on the 
eastern shore, who had taken a great fancy to Savage, and 
who remained ever after friendly to the English. He de- 
scribed the eastern shore to the English, telling them of 
the abundance of fish and fowl. They are said to have 
left, settled very happily, near a hundred English, with 
hope of a good trade for furs there to be had. From 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 461 

thence was brought by Lieutenant Perkinson some of the 
earth called terra lemnia (there to be had in great abun- 
dance) as good as that of Turkey. Pory returned to 
Jamestown after the government had been rendered to Sir 
Francis Wyatt, and found that he had been succeeded as 
secretary by Davison, who thus fell heir to the secretary's 
land and tenants on the eastern shore. 

The Concord, a barque of Barnstable belonging to Mr. 
Delbridge, reached Virginia late in December, bringing 
from the Bermudas letters from Governor Nathaniel Butler 
to Governor Wyatt and to ex-Governor Yeardley, with 
" two large cedar chests wherein were fitted all such kindes 
and sortes of the country plants and fruits, as their Hand 
had as figgs, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, plantanes, 
sugar canes, potatoes, and cassada rootes, papawes, red- 
pepper, the pritle peare, and the like," — one chest for 
the governor and the other for the ex-governor. 

The Tiger (of 40 tons. Captain Nicholas Elford, with 
40 persons, including several maids for wives), which left 
England in consort with the Warwick, was driven by ill 
weather so far as the North Cape, fell into the hands of 
Turks on her way, who took most of her supplies, and all of 
her serviceable sails, tackling, anchors, etc. ; but it pleased 
God to deliver her, by a strange accident, out of their 
power so as she escaped that danger, and arrived safely 
in Virginia, Copland, in his sermon, says, " with all her 
people, two English boys only excepted, for which the 
Turkes gave them two others, a French youth, and an 
Irish — Was not here the presence of God printed, as it 
were, in Folio, on Royall Crowne paper, and Capitall Let- 
ters ? " She arrived in January, 1622, jDrior to the depar- 
ture of the Georg-e. 

Courts were now held at convenient places, and at 
regular times in the four corporations. It seems probable 
that the quarter session courts of the governor and Council 
were held (for a time at least) one in each of the four 
corporations for their convenience. Registers of the acts 



462 UNDER THE COMPANY 

of these quarter sessions were kept, and copies sent to 
England; only a few abstracts have been preserved, and 
I have found no adequate material for the early history of 
the courts under the company ; but from 1626 the material 
is more ample. 

The George, loaded chiefly with tobacco, left Virginia 
for England in January, 1622, with sundry letters to peo- 
ple in England (including one from Mr. Arundell to John 
Smith of Nibley, regarding the richness of the country 
round the river Chickahominy, etc.), and a general letter 
from the governor and Council to the company, telling 
them of the safe arrival of the Warwick ; of the meeting 
of the General Assembly ; asking them to continue send- 
ing silkworm seed, all sorts of vines, all sorts of English 
grain, wheat, barley, oats, etc. ; peas of all kinds, there 
being a general want of seeds of all sorts, " the wheat ^rs^ 
brought hither from the French Colony [by Argall in 
1613] being of a small and bad kind ; " advises that 
ships be sent in the autumn and by the northern course ; 
" thanks for the magazine ; well liked of here that you 
have left the price of Tobacco at liberty since that it is of 
such an uncertain value by reason of the great difference 
thereof ; " has disposed of the maids ; Mr. Harwood says, 
" the people of Martin's Hundred lovingly receive new 
comers ; " " thanks for Rev. Mr. Thomas White," and asks 
for more clergymen ; " men skillful in the art of fortifica- 
tions much needed for locating the chief city of this King- 
dom, if they shall find James City a place not fit or proper 
for that purpose ; " Mr. Thorpe had been sent with messages 
and presents to certain Indian kings who had received him 
kindly, and " Apochankano gave him very good hope of 
their entertaining of some of our families to live amongst 
them, and of their sending to co-habit with us [this had 
been urged by the Council as a special means of convert- 
ing them], and did confirm a former promise of sending 
one to be our guide beyond the Falles to certain mines ; " 
Thorpe was favorably impressed with the Indian ideas of 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 463 

religion ; all the councilors sworn, save Mr. Leach (who 
failed to go to Virginia) and Mr. Paulett (there being two 
of the name in Virginia, it was not certain which one was 
named in the commission) ; the business of the lands and 
tenants belonging to the governor's, the treasurer's, and 
the physician's places; "the Secretary's tenants were the 
last year placed at Achamack," but this was thought to 
be too far from James City ; " Sir George Yeardley hath 
already built a wind -mill and Mr. Treasurer Sandys is 
about the erecting of a water mill ; " Mr. John Berkeley 
and the treasurer would make a special report about the 
iron-works ; Mr. Maurice Berkeley and Miles Pirkett were 
erecting a salt-work ; " a large contribution has been un- 
derwritten for the Inne at Jamestown, and carpenters, 
brickmakers and bricklayers are needed ; " the treasurer 
^vould report of the proceeding of Captain Norton and the 
Italians about the glass-works; such of the Council "as 
had read the Treatise [by Ruggles] commended to them 
were very much distasted for the bitternes of the lan- 
guage ; " " shall give their best endeavors in chusing for 
the Earl of Pembroke and his associates the most comodi- 
ous seat that may be ; " " the arrival of a ship from Mr. 
Gookin out of Ireland;" shipwrights needed; "send herein 
a project of Capt Newce's which had been approved by the 
General Assembly," etc. 

In February, Mr. Pory and others traveled southward to 
the river Chawanock (the Chowan, N. C), some sixty miles 
by land, " passing through great forests of pines, very fit for 
masts, and for pitch and tar, and came into a most fruitful 
country, blessed with abundance of corn, reaped twice a 
year, where also they understood of a copper mine wathin 
ten days march towards the setting of the sun, and met 
with the silk-grass there growing, of wdiich kinds and cot- 
ton wool, all the Cambaya and Bengala stuffs, are made in 
the East Indies." 

The Seaflower (140 tons, with 120 persons, including 
Captain Ralph Hamor, Rev. William Bennet, some of Mr. 



464 UNDER THE COMPANY 

George Harrison's servants, etc.) arrived in February. The 
company had formerly bestowed 32 shares of land in Vir- 
ginia upon Captain Christopher Newport in reward of his 
service ; the Virginia court of July 20, 1621, gave his 
widow three shares for having previously sent six men to 
Virginia at her own charge, and ordered Sir Francis Wyatt 
and the Council to set out the land, and Captain Hamor 
was now to see this done according to Mrs. Newport's 
desire. 

Having set out the various West India fruits and plants 
received by the Concord, the governor now sent a barque to 
the Bermudas laden with aqua \itse, sack, oil, and bricks ; 
in exchange whereof she desired plants and herbs of all 
sorts, potatoes, ducks, turkeys, and limestone. Letters were 
also sent to Governor Butler, thanking him for the former 
supplies and asking for an enlarged quantity in the like 
kinds. 

In March, 1621, there were 843 English iji Virginia, of 
whom about 750 were acclimated. Between that date and 
March, 1622, seventeen ships arrived in Virginia, which 
left England with 1580 persons. In March, 1622, there 
were by the census 1240 English living in Virginia. Of 
2423 people (about 750 acclimated and 1673 newcomers) 
1183 had died en route and in Virginia, showing that the 
death rate among the newcomers had been almost as great 
in the summer of 1621 as in that of 1620, probably equally 
as great, because of the 1240 living, about 400 had recently 
arrived and had not yet gone through the seasoning. 

The Marmaduke and the Warwick left Virginia some 
time in February ; the Concord about the middle of March, 
with letters from Governor Wyaft, ex-Governpr Yeardley, 
Mr. Treasurer Sandys,^ Mr. John Berkeley, the French 
vignerons, and others, all giving the most glowing accounts 
of the progress of affairs in Virginia. " There was no 
longer any danger after their landing, either through wars, 

^ Sandys is said to have written a morphoses at Jamestown during the 
part of his translation of Ovid's Meta- winter of 1621-1622. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 465 

or famine, or want o£ convenient lodging and looking to, 
through which many miscarried heretofore^ for blessed be 
God, there was a liai^i:ty league of peace soundly concluded 
and faithfully kept, between the English and the Natives ; 
and the people being all free-hearted and open-handed to 
all pubhc good works had contributed between £1500 and 
£2000 for erecting a faire Inne in James City for receiving 
and harbouring new comers. The company were assured 
that the Iron, Glass, and Salt-works would be brought to 
perfection within the year ; that sufficient grain of all sorts 
would be raised, ^ both for ourselves and for truck with the 
Natives ; ' restraint of the quantity of Tobacco, and amend- 
ment of it in the quality, learned by time and experience ; 
the recently planted West Indian fruits and plants, at the 
time of their said letters, began to prosper very well ; as 
also their Indico-seeds, for the true care whereof there is 
lately caused a Treatise to be written. Mr John Berkley 
and Mr George Sandys state that the ' Falling creek was 
so fitting for the purpose of the Iron-works, as if Nature 
had applied herself to the wish and direction of the work- 
men.' The French vine-men write that no country in the 
world was more proper for Vines, Silke, Rice, Olives, 
and other Fruits than Virginia is — ' some of the cuttings 
of vines planted at Michaelmas would bear grapes this 
Spring,' " etc. 

In 1621, " the King of the Eastern shore Indians had 
told the English that at the ceremony on the taking up of 
Powhatan's bones many great numbers of Indians were as- 
sembled at which time Opochankano had made a general 
plot to set upon every plantation of the colony.^ Where- 
upon Sir George Yeardley, then governor, went in person 
to every plantation, took a muster of all men, arms, etc., 
and commanded that strict watch and ward should be kept 
everywhere. But Opochankano earnestly denying the plot 
and the English finding no proof of it, gradually came to 

^ This assemblage probably contained Indians from a distance, as well as 
those of Virginia. 



^QQ UNDER THE COMPANY 

a feeling of security." However, in the latter part of Yeard- 
ley's government, Nenemaelianew, with other Indians, killed 
several of the EngHsh, and was finally killed by the Eng- 
lish. Opeehancanough, it seems, pretended not to be satis- 
fied that the Indians had killed the English, and wished to 
have their bodies examined " that it might appear that Ne- 
nemachanew had no hand in their deaths." The accounts 
of these incidents are not clear, but it seems the incidental 
parleying continued until after Wyatt's term began, when, 
about the middle of March, he sent a messenger to Opechan- 
canough, who returned him with the answer " that he held 
the peace concluded so firm as the sky should sooner fall 
than it dissolve ; " and this set the minds of the English 
at ease. The words of the peace had been stamped in 
brass, and, at Opechancanough's request, fixed on one of 
his noted oaks. Master George Thorpe, who had taken so 
much interest in all the Indians, was taking especial pains 
with this king, " who had formerly dwelt in a hut made 
with poles and covered with mats after their wild manner," 
to civilize him. " Thorpe first, built him a fair house, in 
which he took much joy, especially in his lock and key. 
Having thus, as he thought, gained his good graces, Thorpe 
then tried to convert him to the knowledge of God and our 
rehgion — so as he gave him fair hearing and good answer. 
And both he and his people, for the daily courtesies of 
this good gentleman, did promise such outward love and 
respect unto him, as nothing could seem more." 

The Indians kept up this dissimulation to the last ; " some 
of them were even sitting down at breakfast with our people 
at their tables ; when at eight of the clock on that fatal 
Friday morning ^g^^ 1622, (save where the English had 
been notified the night before) for 140 miles up and down 
the river on both sides, they fell upon the English and 
basely and barbarously murthered them, not sparing age or 
sex, man, woman or child — being at their several works, 
in their houses, and in their fields, planting corn and to- 
bacco, gardening, making brick, building, sawing and other 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 467 

kinds of husbandry ; so sudden in their cruel execution, 
that few or none discerned the weapon or blow that brought 
them to destruction." ^ 

The exact number killed may not be certainly known. 
Soon after the Seaflower reached England the company 
published a list of 347 ; but it was almost necessary to 
make the list as small as possible at that time. Six of the 
Council were killed, but the list contains only the names 
of Mr. George Thorpe, Captain Nathaniel Powell, Mr. John 
Berkeley, and Mr. Samuel Maycock. The other two must 
have been Mr. John Rolfe ^ and Mr. Michael Lapworth, as 
they certainly died about this time, and the rest of the Coun- 
cil can be accounted for. Richard Frethorne stated that 
118 were killed at Martin's Hundred ; but the list gives 
only 78. The company afterwards placed the number at 
" about 400," and Edward Hill at " 400 and odd.." It 
was a most severe blow to the colony in almost every way, 
but chiefly owing to the fact that so many of those killed 
were old planters, who had become acclimated, and thus 
were the mainstay of the colony. " These had already 
selected their dividends [located their claims] about in 
chosen rich spots, and thought now to reap the benefit of 
their long travels, under their own vine and fig tree." 

The corporation of Henrico and that part of Charles City 
above the Appomattox was literally wiped out for the time ; 
that is, in Dale's chosen " place of resistance," from which 
he drove the Indians nearly ten years before, the people were 
killed or driven away, and their houses burnt. At Falling 
Creek everything possible was destroyed and the tools of 
the iron-works thrown into the river. The settlers of the 
old Bermuda City and Hundred, the first free farmers, were 
nearly all killed. The settlements below, down to Upper 

^ I have no evidence that the Span- ^ jje was a citizen of Bermuda 

iards had anything to do with this Hundred, and the names of those 

massacre ; but it seems to have been killed there are not in the incomplete 

planned by a master mind, and evi- printed list, 
dently a vast number were engaged 
in it. 



468 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Chippoak Creek, suffered almost as severely. Among those 
killed at Captain Samuel Maycock's dividend near Flower- 
dieu Hundred was Edward Lister, who came over in the 
Mayflower, and was one o£ the signers of the " Compact." 
Comparatively few were killed in the corporation of James 
City. Chanco, an Indian converted to Christianity, and be- 
longing to Captain William Perry, but then living with 
Mr. Richard Pace, at Pace's Paines, rose out of his bed at 
night and revealed it to Pace, " who had used him as a son." 
Upon this discovery, after securing his house, Pace rowed 
over the river, before day, to James City, and gave notice 
thereof to the governor, who had the news spread to such 
other plantations as was possible for a timely intelligence 
to be given ; and but few, if any, were killed within a cir- 
cuit of about five miles from Jamestown. But at Martin's 
Hundred, about seven miles away in the lower end of the 
present county near Keith's Creek, and over the river from 
Mulberry Island, at the plantations of Mr. Thomas Pierce 
and Mr. Edward Bennet (Isle of Wight), many were killed. 
But few were killed lower down the river, or on the eastern 
shore, which was attributed to the action of " the Laughing 
King, who could not be induced to join in (and so by con- 
sequence kept the remote coast Indians out of) the general 
combination against the English, which otherwise might 
have been the complete ruin of the colony." Save for this, 
and the revelation of Chanco, it was afterwards thought 
" that the slaughter would have been universal." 

" That God had put it into the heart of this converted 
Indian to reveal the conspiracy, by which meanes James- 
town and many Colonists were preserved from their trech- 
eries, was regarded as the most exquisite incident in the 
life of the Colony." " For though three hundred and more 
of ours died by many of these Pagan Infidels, yet thousands 
of ours were saved by the meanes of one of them alone 
which was made a Christian ; Blessed be God forever, 
whose mercy endureth forever ; Blessed be God whose 
mercy is above his Justice, and farre above all his workes : 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 469 

Who wrought his deliverance whereby their Soules escaped 
even as a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowler." ^ 

It was said in Virginia, " The dayly feare that possest 
them, that in time we by our growing continually upon 
them, would dispossess them of this Country, as they had 
been formerly of the West Indies by the Spaniards, pro- 
duced this bloody Act." 

They not only killed the people, but, after the usual In- 
dian manner, mutilated them, burnt their houses, drove off 
their stock, and took what they could not destroy, includ- 
ing some pieces and ammunition. It was reported " that 
theu' King caused the most of the gun-powder by him sur- 
prised, to be sown, to draw therefrom the like increase, as 
of his maize in Harvest next." ^ 

Towards evening Sir George Yeardley went in his ship 
up the river to Flowerdieu Hundred, trying to save such 
people " as might have lyen wounded " at the different 
plantations. 

At the time of the massacre there were three or four 
English ships in James River, and one (the Elizabeth) in 
the next river (the Pamunkey). And three more came in 
within twenty-four days after, namely, the Hopewell (sixty 
tons, Thomas Smith, master, with twenty persons), the Bona 
Nova (200 tons, John Huddleston, master, with fifty per- 
sons), and the Discovery (sixty tons, Thomas Jones, captain, 

1 This was published by Water- booke " to Queen Anne (which is an- 

house in August, 1622. In the fol- other incorrect summary of his ser- 

lowing October, in the second edition vices in Virginia) which he says he 

of his Neiv England Trials, Captain writ in 1616. This also contains a 

John Smith, in his usual incorrect sum- reference to the incident ; but the 

mary of what he had done in Virginia, writing of this letter at that time has 

inserted : " Yet God made Pocahontas also been questioned. I cannot see 

the King's daughter the meanes to that these personal questions are of 

deliver me : and thereby taught me any great consequence to any one 

to know their trecheries to preserve save Smith. We should not allow 

the rest." This is the first reference them longer to obscure matters of 

to the much discussed Pocahontas in- real historic importance, 
cident in any of Smith's publications. ^ Smith also makes use of this idea 

In his General History of 1624, he in- in his account of the Pocahontas inci- 

serted " an abstract " of "a little dent in his history. 



470 UNDER THE COMPANY 

with twenty persons). All three of these ships were com- 
missioned to go from Virginia on a trading voyage to the 
Delaware and Hudson rivers, and on a fishing voyage to 
New England. Both of the last ships brought letters from 
the Council in England. The Discovery belonged to the 
adventurers of Southampton Hundred, who were sending 
her on a special fur-trading voyage to Hudson River. A 
delay in obtaining silkworm seed had caused her to stay 
in England much longer than had been intended. She did 
not leave until December ; but the governor was urged to 
hasten her departure from Virginia. And by the Bona 
Nova, which left England ten days later, the Council 
wrote : " We hear two Dutchmen double manned are gone 
to trade for furs in the selfsame places. Make haste and 
dispatch Captain Thomas Jones that he may be before them 
and furnish him as we before desired with the brass pieces 
sent in the Charles," etc. The letters tell what they were 
doing in England, and what they wished done in Virginia. 
They sent various sorts of seed and fruit trees, also pigeons, 
conies, peacocks, mastiffs, beehives, silkworm seed, etc. But 
when they arrived in Virginia all was confusion, out of 
which the governor and Council were then trying to bring 
order. It was determined to hold James City, Paspaheigh, 
the various plantations over the river opposite James City, 
Kecoughtan, New Port Newce, Southampton Hundred, 
Flowerdieu Hundred, Sherley Hundred, and the plantation 
of Mr. Samuel Jourdan. All others were to be abandoned, 
and the remaining cattle, as far as possible, to be gathered 
together on Jamestown Island as the most secure place for 
them. The cattle from Berkeley Hundred were carried by 
Mr. Kemish, the overseer, to Jordan's Journey. Of the 
thirty-eight emigrants sent in the Margaret, to Berkeley, 
only five were surviving in Virginia ; of the forty-nine sent 
in the Supply twenty-four were hving. 

The dispersed planters were gathered to the reserved 
centres as rapidly as possible. The commission for remov- 
ing the people from Henrico and Coxendale was issued 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 471 

April f 0. These places being impaled and protected by 
the river, the inhabitants had been able to defend them- 
selves bravely against the savage hordes, and thus at each 
place some were preserved from the general slaughter. 
Order having been restored in some degree, the Seaflower 
was dispatched to England, about May 22, with letters from 
the governor and Council, Mr. George Sandys, Mr. George 
Harrison, and others, telling of the great massacre. Mr. 
Daniel Gookin and others went over at the same time to 
give in person the unwelcome news. How, " whilst all 
their affairs were full of success, and such intercourse of 
familiarity, as if the Indians and themselves had been of 
one Nation, those treacherous Natives, after five years 
peace, by a general combination in one day plotted to 
subvert their whole colony, and at one instant of time, 
though our severall plantations were an hundred and forty 
miles up one river on both sides." 

The governor and Council, in their letter, tell what they 
had done, what they proposed to do, and what they wished 
the company to do for them. They think of concentrat- 
ing at some place more easily fortified than Jamestown ; 
they want an engineer, arms, and provisions. " All which 
being speedily done. The plantation will suddenly be in 
a far more safer, happy, and florishinge estate than ever it 
was before." 

Extremes meet. There are two great incentives to ad- 
vancement, — the reward brought by success, and the de- 
termination aroused by disaster. And, sustained by the 
motives which inspired them, it was the John Bull in our 
founders which carried the movement forward from the 
first, in spite of every calamity, and despite of all opposi- 
tion. 

The Discovery and the Bona Nova were sent out on their 
trading and fishing voyages as soon as possible. In May 
or June, Captain John Huddleston, on the last-named ship, 
sent his boat ashore with a letter to his good friends at 
Plymouth, New England, telling them of such a blow in 



472 UNDER THE COMPANY 

South Virginia, " that 400 persons large will not make good 
our losses," and warning them to be on their guard. The 
colony there was then pinched by famine, and Captain 
Huddleston gave them such assistance as he could, " or 
some had starved." John Pory left Virginia on the Dis- 
covery, which ship was also on the New England coast in 
the following summer and fall. 

The barque sent to the Bermudas in March returned to 
Virginia in June, deeply laden with the native commodities 
of the islands ; with limestone, 20,000 pounds of potatoes, 
ducks, turkeys, conies, cassada roots, etc., "all which being 
a great relief to the plantation." The massacre, the sub- 
sequent changes, the preparations for a war with the In- 
dians, all tending to an abandonment or neglect of crops, 
had caused a slender harvest, especially as these things had 
happened during the planting season. 

The Elizabeth, under Captain Spelman (with Captain 
Ralegh Crashaw and others), was trading with the Indians 
first in the Pamunkey and after in the Potomac. Accounts 
differ as to which river the barque was in at the time of the 
massacre, but none were killed, and in June the barque was 
in the Potomac, where Captain Hamor, with a ship and pin- 
nace, joined them. While in this river, on June 27, Hamor 
made an agreement with the king of Potomac against Ope- 
chancanough, " their and our enemy." " He also slew 
divers of the Necochincos [Anacostines ?] that sought to 
circumvent him by treacherie." 

When the English were ready to make the general attack 
on the Indians, Sir George Yeardley was given the chief 
command. 

" Bould worthy Sir George Yardly commander cheife was made 
Cause fourteene yeares, aud more he hath within this Country staid. 
Against the King Opukingunow against this savage foe 
Did he with many an English heart for just revenge thus goe." 

Mr. Treasurer George Sandys fell upon the " Tappaha- 
tonaks," opposite Jamestown, in several expeditions. Sir 
George Yeardley fell upon the Wyanokes ; Captain William 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 473 

Powell upon the Chickahominies, and Captain John West 
upon the Tanx-Powhatans. All of these expeditions were 
up James River. Powell, it seems, also went against the 
" Apummactokes." Everywhere the Indians fled at the 
approach of the English, who killed only a few of them, 
but burnt their towns, destroyed their weirs, etc., and took 
their corn. Edward Waters and his wife, who had been 
made prisoners by the Nansemonds, escaped to Kecoughtan. 
It was learned that Opechancanough had twenty other Eng- 
hsh still prisoners on the Pamunkey, and " Captain Madison 
was sent unto him about them ; but he returned an insolent 
answer to the governor's message, and did some dishonor 
to the king's [James I.] picture." 

It was resolved by the governor and Council, at the end 
of August, to make war upon Opechancanough with 500 
men, " hoping by God's help, this winter to clear the coun- 
try of him, and so settle the colony in a far better estate 
than it was before ; and thus the massacre will result in the 
speedy advancement of the colony, and much to the benefit 
of all those who shaU hereafter come thither." 

June 30, " a commission was given to Sir George Yeard- 
ley to go and search for a convenient settlement at the 
Eastern shore, because of the unfitness of this river to secure 
against foreign and domestic enemies." They also wished 
to find a more healthy locality. The sickly season was now 
coming on, and men were dying daily. The ministers said 
this was brought on them by their sins. The governor issued 
proclamations, to make them better, against drunkenness, 
swearing, stealing, and " engrossing of commodities." 

The Bona Venture, of 50 tons, with 10 persons, and 
the Gift of God, with 100 persons, left England in April, 
and arrived in Virginia probably in July, 1622. But I 
have found no evidence that the following three ships, 
which left England in the spring of 1622, ever reached 
Virginia : the Godspeed, 150 tons, with 100 persons ; the 
Prime Rose, 80 tons, with 60 persons ; and the White 
Lion, 180 tons, with 40 persons and 40 cattle ; and their 



474: UNDER THE COMPANY 

fate is unknown to me ; but it probably lies concealed, 
with other tragedies of American colonization, within the 
bosom of the Atlantic. 

Thomas Weston's ship, the Charity, of 80 tons, Rey- 
nolds, master, left England in April, with 30 persons, for 
Virginia ; reached New England probably in June, and 
Virginia in July or August ; landed her passengers, and 
then returned to New England. The Sparrow, another of 
Weston's ships, came to Virginia about the same time, 
where, it is said, " both she and her fish were sold." The 
trade between the colonies of Virginia, New England, and 
the Bermudas was thenceforward of growing consequence. 

The Furtherance, of 180 tons, Mr. Sampson, master, with 
80 persons, which left England in June, 1622, before the 
news of the massacre arrived, and reached Virginia in the 
fall of 1622, bringing a general letter from the Council in 
England ; " Capt Thomas Barwick with 25 shipwrights for 
buildings, boats, pinnaces etc, to which enterprise at least 
1200 acres of land was to be allotted ; Leonard Hudson, a 
carpenter, and five apprentices for erecting the East India 
Free School, of which the Colony was allowed to select the 
schoolmaster or usher ; Rev. Wm Leate was sent as a min- 
ister. ... It was Rev. Mr. Robert Paulett whom the Court 
chose to be of the Council in Virginia. The Adventurers 
of Martin Hundred desire that Mr Harwood might be 
spared from that office, their business requiring his pre- 
sence continually." 

Sir George Yeardley returned from his plantation on 
the eastern shore in August. In September the Indians 
killed four men in Elizabeth City, and carried off some of 
Mr. Edward Hill's cattle. Some of the Anacostan Indians 
revealed to Captain Madison the intended treachery of the 
Potomacs ; wherefore he made an attack on them, killing 
some, and taking others prisoners he carried them to James- 
town. The slender harvest had constrained the English 
to attempt trading with the more remote savages, and 
Hamor was a second time employed to the Potomacs ', but 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1621 — NOVEMBER 28, 1622 475 

they " likewise proved our most treacherous enemies, cun- 
ningly circumventing and cruelly murdering such as were 
employed abroad to get relief from them." And Hamor 
slew more of them. 

In the fall an expedition was sent out under the command 
of Sir George Yeardley against the savages down the river. 
He drove out the Nansemonds and Warraskoyacks, burnt 
their houses, and took their corn. Reembarking he went 
over to Kecoughtan, and then up the Pamunkey, landing 
at Chescheack, then going on to the chief seat of Sassapen 
and Opechancanough, where they served those Indians as 
they had the Nansemonds, and returned with the corn to 
Jamestown. The EngKsh wearing heavy armor, and the In- 
dians being fleet of foot, but few were killed. However, 
the armor protected the English from the Indian arrows. 

The neighboring Indians being now apparently driven 
away, some of the English were disposed to return to their 
former plantations ; but the sickness was still prevailing. 
George Sandys said that " a party going to seat at one of 
the deserted townes of the King of Apomatuckes, were so 
deminished by death and weakened by sickness before they 
could get thither that they were fain to give it over." 

Captain Nathaniel Butler, late governor of the Bermudas, 
arrived in Virginia on Mr. Bennett's barque about Novem- 
ber 20, 1622. His term as governor had expired, and 
according to some accounts he left the island in a legal 
way ; others say otherwise. There had been differences 
between him and the company, and it was stated that he 
and others in the island had determined to petition the 
king and Privy Council " for altering the cjovernment of 
the Company as being anti-monarchical and for the reducing 
it into the hands of a few principal persons," and that in 
going to Virginia he had the same object in view. 

His cedar chests of fruits and plants had not been for- 
gotten, and " at James Town he was kindly entertained by 
Sir Francis Wyatt the governor," whose first year came 
to an end a few days after his arrival. 



vn 

ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 

HENRY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TREASURER; MR. NICHOLAS 
FERRAR, DEP UTY- TREA S URER 

At the Easter court, June 1, 1622, " after other things 
had been ordered, as the court were proceeding after their 
accustomed manner to the election of officers for this pre- 
sent year, according to the direction of his Majesty's letters- 
patent, Mr Alderman Hamersly rose up and said that himself 
and Mr. Bell were both commanded by Mr. Secretary Cal- 
vert to deliver a message in his Majesty's name to this 
court — namely, to signify that although it was not his 
Majesty's desii-e to infringe their liberty of free election, 
yet it would be pleasing unto him if they made choice for 
Treasurer and Deputy of one each from the following list. 
For Treasurer — Sir John Wolstenholme, M"" William Rus- 
sell, Mr. Cletherow, Mr. Morrice Abbot, Mr Hansford. For 
Deputy — Mr Leate, Mr Robert Oftly, Mr. Bateman, Mr. 
StHes, Mr Abdy." 

" Which messages being a full remonstrance of his 
Majesty's well-wishing unto the plantation, and of his gra- 
cious 'meaning 7iot to infringe the priviledge of the Com- 
paiiy and the liberty of their free election [?], was received 
with great joy and contentment [?] of the whole court — 
and thereupon proceeding to the election of their Trea- 
surer." Mr. Cletheroe and Mr. Hansford were selected to 
stand for it from the king's list, and the Earl of South- 
ampton was named by the company. The election being 
by ballot, Southampton received 117 balls (and was elected), 
Mr. Cletheroe 13, and Mr. Hansford 7. 

For deputy, Mr. Leat and Mr. Bateman were selected from 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 477 

the king's list, and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar was named by the 
company. Mr. Ferrar received 103 balls (and was elected), 
Mr. Bateman 10, and Mr. Leat 8. 

Mr. Edward Bennett was chosen an auditor in the place 
of Mr. Cranmer, who had removed from London. The 
other old officials were reelected. 

The lord bishop of London,^ Mr. Bing, Mr. Jermyn, 
and Mr. Bernard were added to his Majesty's Council for 
the company. Rev. Doctor John Donne (or Dunn), dean 
of St. Pauls, (Rev.?) Doctor Sunnibanck, (Rev.?) Mr. 
Leech, Rev. Samuel Purchas (chaplain to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury), Mr. Damport (probably Rev. John Daven- 
port), Mr. William Clarke, Mr. Thomas Barwick, and Mr. 
John Whitson, alderman of Bristol, were admitted into the 
company. Elias Roberts passed one share to his son Ehas. 
Mr. John Ferrar, the retiring deputy, was rewarded for his 
three years' service in that office by having twenty shares 
of old adventure gfiven him. 

" The Lords Cavendish, Padgett, and Houghton were re- 
quested by the Court to present their most humble thanks 
to his Majesty for his gracious remembrance and good 
wishes to their affairs, out of which he was pleased to re- 
commend certain persons for Treasurer and Deputy, if they 
so thought fit, hut without any infringement of their lib- 
erty of free election, and they were further requested to 
testify unto his Majesty the great reverence [?] wherewith 
his message was received and how in conformity thereunto, 
although they had formerly, according to their custom in 
their preparative court, nominated the Earl of Southamp- 
ton for Treasurer, yet out of the persons recommended by 
his Majesty they had chose four, who had most voices, and 
put them in election with two nominated by the Company, 
upon whom the places were conferred with the unanimous 
consent of the Company, having found the plantation to 

1 Rev. George Mouutaine. The bishop of London, the Rev. John King 
church affairs in Virginia being under had also been of this Council until his 
the especial supervision of the lord death in 1621. 



478 UNDER THE COMPANY 

prosper every one of these three last years, more than in 
ten before, and found more to have been done with ten- 
thousand pounds than formerly with four-score thousand, 
and they conceive that in regard the staple commodities of 
iron, silk, wine, salt, etc., are now in estabHshing and per- 
fecting, as also that the government of that country is to 
be confirmed, that sufficiency for direction would not so 
much advance the plantation, as the variableness of instruc- 
tions, proceeding from different conceptions, would preju- 
dice the business." 

On June 8, Lord Cavendish was chosen governor of the 
Somers Islands Company, and Captain John Bernard com- 
missioned to succeed Captain Nathaniel Butler as governor 
of the islands. Butler was of the Smythe party, while 
Cavendish and Bernard were of the Sandys party, which 
party was now in control of the courts of both companies, 
and was determined to remove " the former governors sent 
in the time of Sir Thomas Smith's government either to 
Virginia or the Bermudas, altho' according to the vogue of 
State they were supported by some Lords and other mem- 
bers of the Company, by Sir Thomas Smith and his friends, 
with the Spanniolized faction of the Privy Council and the 
King's Bed-chamber." Yeardley soon came to an accord 
with the Sandys party, but Butler remained in opposition. 

When the committee presented the message from the 
Virginia court of June 1 to James I., " the King flung 
himself away in a furious passion," but Prince Charles acted 
as a peacemaker. On June 15, Lord Cavendish acquainted 
the court with his Majesty's answer unto their message ; 
" but his Majesty seemeth not well satisfied that out of so 
large a number by him recommended they had not made 
any choice, his Majesty conceiving that merchants were 
fittest for the government of that plantation, in respect of 
their skill and abilities in raising of staple commodities, and 
instancing Sir Thomas Smith, in whose time many staple 
commodities were set up, which were now laid down and 
only tobacco followed. To which his Lordship made answer 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 479 

that in this point, as Hkewise in many other particulars 
touching the Company and their proceedings, his Majesty 
had been much misinformed. The following of tobacco 
only, and the neglecting of staple commodities have been 
the fruits of Sir Thomas Smith's and Alderman Johnson's 
time ; but on the contrary, it hath been laboured ever since 
with all industry, care and diligence to erect iron-mills, plant 
vineyards, nourish silk and other like, of some whereof they 
hoped shortly to give his Majesty very good proof, and 
that since the time of Sir Thomas Smith the colony had 
grown to almost as many thousand people as he had left 
hundreds ; good increase had been also of the cattle, and 
that with ten thousand pounds' expence there had been 
more performed for the advancement of the plantation 
than by Sir Thomas Smith with four-score thousand." 

It is necessary, in order to give a complete idea of the 
case, for me to quote at length from these court records, and 
other evidences of like character ; but the reader will find 
a fairly correct and more impartial statement of the actual 
condition of affairs in Virginia at the different times in the 
Virginia chapters. 

The Furtherance sailed for Virginia on June 20, 1622. 

In April, 1622, the Privy Council had ordered the trea- 
surer and Council for Virginia to send them a reply to Bar- 
grave's petition, etc., regarding a change in their form of 
government. On June 8, the company officials obtained 
from Bargrave a statement to the effect that " he had 
reference to the form used by Sir Thomas Smyth, that 
things were now going on better," etc., and the next day 
they enclosed this statement with their reply to the Privy 
Council. On the other hand, Bargrave himself sent to the 
Privy Council an explanation which places a different color 
on his statement. He tells the lords " that being pressed 
by the Council for Virginia to answer the last part of his 
Articles, he was willing to avow this present government to 
be in good hands ; but to justify the form for ye progression 
of ye Plantation he would not do it although he was much 



480 UNDER THE COMPANY 

urged thereunto." After presenting again this matter of 
state he goes on to petition to have the case between himself 
and the old officials of the Virginia Company heard by ref- 
erees. The Privy Council granted his request on June 26, 
and appointed Viscount Grandison, Lord Brook, Sir Julius 
Caesar, and Sir Edward Conway as referees. But on the 
next day James I. wrote to his Council that the case had 
been heard by the lord keeper and decided by him with as 
much favor on the behalf of Bargrave as in equity and 
conscience the cause would bear, and " seeing this inces- 
sant importunity of the plaintife seems to have no other 
end than to blemish the reputation of Sir Thomas Smyth 
which hitherto we acknowledge he hath ever held with us 
to be an honest discrete and well deserving man both to 
us and ye Commonwealth. Our pleasure is, that unless 
you find other reason to the contrary not known to us, you 
entertain the complaint no longer at the Table, but to dis- 
miss it as a matter allready fully determined." Mr. Thomas 
Melling was an acknowledged partner of Bargrave ; but 
others of much influence were evidently interested in the 
matter. In politics Bargrave was of the royal party, but 
in his suit he joined hands with the Sandys party against 
Sir Thomas Smythe in his own personal interest. 

At the Virginia court, June 29, James Wortham passed 
one share to a person whose name is now illegible, and 
Francis Carter passed three shares, — one to Thomas Wain- 
wright and two to Robert Smith. Sir Nicholas Lower, 
whose brothers had been large adventurers long ago, was 
now resolved to adventure himself. " Mr John Cuffe was 
the Companies Cashier." This court was almost entirely 
occupied in answering the petitions or complaints of Captain 
John Martin, Captain Robert Hazenell, Captain Matthew 
Somers, Adam Dixon, William Kempe, and others. In the 
replies the court was disposed to shift these claimants on 
" Sir George Yeardley," who they state " was chosen Gov- 
ernor of Virginia in the time of Sir Thomas Smith and by his 
consent." The present managers in England evidently did 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 481 

not feel that the enterprise was entirely under their control 
until Yeardley and Pory were succeeded by officers chosen 
by themselves. Still, after all, " man proposes but God 
disposes." Within less than two weeks after the meeting 
of this court the Seaflower retm-ned from Virofinia with the 
unwelcome news of the great massacre of the English by 
the Indians. It was kept as quiet as possible, and the 
exact date of the arrival of the ship is unknown to me ; 
but she left Virginia after May 22, and reached England 
prior to July 13, on which day the Trinity quarter court 
met, and " Sir Edward Sackville was entreated to acquaint 
the Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council with the massacre 
of the English Colony in Virginia by the Indians there, 
and with the present necessity of arms and people to 
make a reparation," etc. Aside from this, the court went 
through the regular routine as if nothing had happened. 

This court (July 13) gave order that a receipt should be 
sealed for .£4:7 16s, which the gentlemen and mariners had 
given to the East India Company to be employed in laying 
the foundation of a church in Virginia. Captain Martin 
Pring (of the Royal James) was made a freeman of the com- 
pany, and two shares of land were given him. The same 
was done by Mr. Thomas Kerridge, the commander of the 
East India ship that last came home. Mr. Robert Careles, 
who had Hved twenty years in the West Indies and sixteen 
years in the East Indies, was admitted, and one share given 
him. Rev. Mr. Patrick Copland was chosen to be rector 
of the intended college in Virginia, and Sir Edwin Sandys, 
Sir John Danvers, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. John Ferrar, Mr. R. 
Smith, Mr. Wrote, and Mr. Barber were appointed the 
committee for the college for this present year. Mrs. Mary 
Tue, daughter of Hugh Crouch, heir and executor of Lieu- 
tenant Richard Crouch, assigned 150 acres to Mr. Daniel 
Gookin (who had returned in the Seaflower), and 100 acres 
to Samuel Jordan, then in Virginia. Rev. Mr. Pemberton 
(who intended to go to Virginia) and Rev. Mr. Lawne, or 
Launce (who always remembered Virginia in his prayers). 



482 UNDER THE COMPANY 

and Rev. Mr. Samuel Seaward, of Oxford, bachelor of 
divinity, were admitted into the company without charge, 
and the court agreed "to recommend Rev. Mr. Hopkins 
unto the governor of Virginia, upon the good comendation 
that Mr. Edward Allen hath given of him being desirous to 
go over at his own charge." Having thus strengthened 
themselves with the church, the court now strengthened 
themselves with the state by adding to his Majesty's Coun- 
cil for the company the Lord Marquis Hamilton, Sir Ed- 
ward Conway, of the Privy Council, Sir Henry Mildmay, 
master of the jewel-house, Sir Thomas Coventry, attorney- 
general. Sir Edward Barkham, lord mayor of London, Mr. 
Heneage Finch, recorder of London, and Dr. John Dunn, 
dean of Paul's. Sundry patents to adventurers (one of 
whom was Edward Palmer of the Middle Temple) and 
planters were confirmed. It was noted that the adventures 
of " M^ Robert Stout £50 ; John Stout £25, and Mr John 
Jolles £25, had been omitted in the printed book." Mr. 
Swaine (or Swann), master of the Hart, and Mr. Browne, 
master of the Robucke (recently returned from the East 
Indies), were admitted into the Virginia Company, and one 
share given each ; Francis Carter passed sixteen shares to 
Edward Palmer of the Middle Temple, and one share to 
Mr. Edward Butler. " 40 shares had been previously as- 
signed by the Lady De La Warr to Francis Carter." This 
will account in part for Carter's transfers. " Thomas Read 
passed over (under his hand and seal) one hundred acres of 
land in Virginia, scituate in Coxendale, over against the 
Island of Henricus, some part thereof being called by the 
name of Mount My Lady, unto Edward Hurd, of London, 
citizen and iron monger, which one hundred acres were 
granted unto him by Sir George Yeardley, then Governor 
of Virginia, and under the Colony's seal, in regard of his 
eight years' good service in that Country." 

" On July 15 it was agreed by the New England com- 
pany that M^ Gookyn shall be admitted in ye new Grants 
upon payment of his Adventure." I suppose that the 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1G23 483 

massacre in Virginia may have turned him toward New 
Eno'land. 

In the spring of 1622, Lord Treasurer Cranfield pro- 
posed to Sir Edwin Sandys that the government should 
contract directly with the Virginia and Somers Islands 
companies for the sole importation of tohacco, in prefer- 
ence to the collectors of the customs, Abraham and John 
Jacob, who then held the contract. " It is a misfortune 
(saies he) not to be avoided, that whilst the Plantations in 
their present infancy have their whole subsistence by the 
trade of tobacco, the King's necessities should cast him upon 
all and any ways for advancement of his revenue . . . and 
when the Vhginia and Summer Islands Company offer to 
plead their freedom [from duty] in the case, the Lawyers 
say, it is a poisonous drug which the King might justifie 
to banish or burn, and not to be accounted as a staple 
or national commodity, in which case it was in the King's 
power to do his pleasure in any sort concerning the same. 
But to comply for the advantage of the plantations the 
companies might, and should if they pleased, have the sole 
importation to them and in their managing for £20,000 
per annum." After consultation with Sir Arthur Ingram, 
and further debate with the lord treasurer. Sir Edwin 
Sandys submitted the question to the Virginia court of 
June 15, 1622. Committees were then appointed by both 
companies to treat and consider the matter of this contract. 
These committees reported to an extraordinary court, held 
for that purpose, on July 9, and the matter was fully dis- 
cussed. It was again considered at the preparative court 
of July 11, and the " Propositions were finally agreed on 
by the Treasurer and Company for Virginia in a Great and 
General Quarter Court, held on Wednesday, the 13'^ of 
July, 1622, touching a contract to be made with his Maj- 
esty for the sole importation of tobacco, which propositions 
they desire may be ratified by the Right Honourable, the 
Lord Hiffh Treasurer of Endand." The contract was to 
begin at Michaelmas, 1622, and continue for the space ot 



484 UNDER THE COMPANY 

seven years then next ensuing. The Somers Islands court 
of July 20 suggested some alterations, and the Virginia 
court of July 27 appointed a committee to meet and advise 
about the drawing up of the patent touching the said con- 
tract with his Majesty; to attend the attorney-general 
about the same, as representatives of the companies. 

At the Virginia court of July 27, " Capt Thomas Jones 
of the Discovery now employed in Virginia was admitted 
and made a freeman of the Company." Francis Carter 
passed one share to John Hitch ; Richard Ball (or Bull) 
passed one share to Ralph Bateman, and one to John 
Budge ; and William Fleet passed three shares to his 
daughter, Katherine Fleet. Mr. William Phetiplace had 
paid Sir Thomas Smith <£10 on September 19, 1607, which 
was short of a full share ; but as he was an ancient adven- 
turer, a full share of 100 acres of land in Virginia was 
allowed to him by this court. 

When the news of the massacre reached England, the 
company was busy with large preparations for the coming 
year, and it was at first a most severe shock ; but it soon 
aroused the determination of the company and excited the 
sympathy of the friends of the colony to such an extent 
that all things were carried forward promptly and very 
vigorously. 

" Sir Edward Sackville, after delivering the message to 
the Privy Council in re the massacre, entreated their lord- 
ships' mediation to his Majesty in their said suit, which 
they were pleased to perform. His Majesty was graciously 
pleased to promise them assistance, and demanded what the 
Company desired. It was answered, munition and people, 
whereby they might be enabled to take a just revenge of 
these treacherous Indians, and to recover what they had 
now lost, as also to secure themselves against the like, or 
any foreign enemy that should offer to assault them ; where- 
upon it pleased his Majesty to promise them such arms out 
of the Tower as was desired." The officers of the Tower 
then reported what arms they had on hand. On July 27, 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622— APRIL, 1623 485 

Sir Edward Sackville made his report to the ComjDany. 
They soon after made a note of such of these arms as they 
wanted, which was presented to the Privy Council on Au- 
gust 8, 1622, who at once issued their order to " the Lord 
High Treasurer of England who calling unto him some of 
the officers of the ordnance shall advise what sorts and pro- 
portion of the said arms are fit to be delivered for the use 
afore said and thereupon give order for delivering the same 
accordingly." This order was issued on the same day to Sir 
John Cope, the king's master of the armory, "to deliver 
100 brigantines, 40 plate coats, 400 shirts and coats of 
mail, 2,000 skulls of iron, 1,000 halberds, and brown bills ; 
and 50 murdering pieces. Besides pistols, daggers, etc." 
These thino^s were then held to be " altog-ether unfit and 
of no use for modern service but very serviceable against 
that naked people." They also asked for the loan of twenty 
barrels of powder, which the king let them have to be 
repaid in January, 1623. 

Exactly when the news first reached the public I do not 
know. On July 22, Mr. Thomas Locke wrote to Rev. Jo- 
seph Mead : " I had most forgotten [to tell you] that all our 
people, in all places should, on March 22 [0. S.] at eight 
in the morning, under pretence of friendship, have been 
murdered by the natives ; and had been, had not an Indian 
boy the night before discovered it to his master, who, all 
night, sent about to give notice ; yet, in Martin's hundred, 
too far off to have notice, almost all were slain, as namely, 
329." And, on July 23, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton 
about it. 

On July 29, " The Court of Common Council of London 
taking into consideration the great loss which Virginia had 
lately sustained by the barbarous cruelty of the savage 
people there (who if their design had not been discovered 
had endanofered the utter ruin and subversion of the whole 
plantation) did with one heart and voice express their read- 
iness to cherish and assist so noble and pious a work and 
did give £500 towards the furnishing, apparelling and 



486 UNDER THE COMPANY 

i 

transporting of 100 persons from the age of 12 years and 
upwards." Sir Edward Barkham, lord mayor, Sir Thomas 
Bennett, etc. (the committee of December 28, 1619), were 
appointed, under the same conditions, committees for the 
better ordering, dispatch, and effecting of the said business. 
On August 2, Sir Edward Barkham, the lord mayor, issued 
his precept to the church- wardens, etc., for levying the .£500. 
The parish of St. Christopher's paid £3 18s 6d of this sum. 

The James, of 120 tons, was sent to Virginia by the 
company, and the Truelove, of 46 tons, by private adven- 
turers, about August 12. These were the first ships sent 
after hearing of the massacre j they carried emigrants, sup- 
plies, letters, etc. 

Before the news of the massacre, in making the prepara- 
tions for the coming year, the company had pubhshed a 
broadside, called : — 

(I.) " The Inconveniences that have happened to some 
persons which have trans-ported themselves from England to 
Virginia, without provisions necessary to sustain themselves, 
hath greatly hindred the Progress of that noble Planta- 
tion : For prevention of the like disorders hereafter, that 
no man suffer, either through ignorance or misinformation ; 
it is thought requisite to publish this short declaration : 
wherein is contained a particular of such necessaries, as 
either private families or single persons shall have cause 
to furnish themselves with, for their better support at their 
first landing in Virginia ; whereby also greater numbers 
may receive in part, directions how to provide themselves." 
The list gives the necessary articles of " Apparell, Victuall, 
Armes, Tooles and Household Implements, and the cost of 
each, amounting to the sum of £12 10 shillings each per- 
son, which with the cost of passage £6 and the freight 
£1 10s makes a total of £20. If the number of people be 
greater, Nets, hookes, lines, and a tent, as also some Kine 
must be added." And this " is the usual proportion that 
the Virginia Company do bestow upon their Tenants which 
they send. Whosoever transports himself or any other at 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622— APRIL, 1623 487 

liis own charge unto Virginia, shall for each person so trans- 
ported before Midsummer 1625, have to him and his heires 
forever fifty acres of land upon a first, and fifty acres upon 
a second division." 

This pubHshed list contained the " necessaries " only. 
Mr. William Webb, the husband of the Company, advised 
those who were able to do so to carry over, also, some 
butter, cheese, beef-suet and beer. People of more ample 
means of course carried whatever they wanted for their 
use. 

(II.) The hope for a ready way to the South Sea had 
been revived by Mr. Henry Briggs, the celebrated mathe- 
matician, in " A Treatise of the Northwest Passage to the 
South Sea, through the continent of Virginia and by Fre- 
tum Hudson." 

On August 31, there was entered for publication at Sta- 
tioners' Hall : — 

" A Declaration of the State of the Colony and affaires 
in Virginia. With A Relation of the barbarous massacre 
in the time of peace and league, treacherously executed by 
the native infidels upon the English, the 22 of March last. 
Together with the names of those that were then massa- 
cred ; that their lawf uU heyres, by this notice given, may 
take order for the inheriting of their lands and estates in 
Virginia. And (II.) A Treatise annexed, written by that 
learned mathematician, Mr. Henry Briggs, of the North- 
west passage to the South Sea through the continent of 
Virginia and by Fretum Hudson. Also a Commemora- 
tion of such worthy Benefactors as have contributed their 
Christian Charitie towards the advancement of the Colony. 
And a Note of the charges [^ The Inconveniences ' etc., 
the broadside (I.) abovesaid] of necessary provisions fit 
for every man that intends to go to Virginia. Published 
by Authoritie. Imprinted at London by G. Eld, for Robert 
Mylbourne and are to be sold at his shop, at the great South 
doore of Pauls, 1622." 

The Declaration was collected, by Edward Waterhouse, 



488 UNDER THE COMPANY 

out of the letters sent to the Virginia Company by the 
governor and other gentlemen of quahty there, and from 
" the relation of some of those that were beholders of that 
tragedie," who returned in " the Sea-Flower, the ship that 
brought us this unwelcome news." The book was soon 
issued. Rev. Joseph Mead wrote to Sir Martin Stuteville 
from Christ College, September 24, 1622, about it ; and 
adds, " they took some of our ordnance, and some barrels 
of gunpowder, which Opocohontas [sic], the King, caused 
to be sown, expecting a large crop of gunpowder in the 
summer, thinking it would have grown." 

The object of the work was to correct erroneous ideas 
and to encourage the enterprise. " No generous Spirit will 
forbear to go on for this accident that hath hapned to the 
Plantation, but proceed rather chearfuUy in this honorable 
Enterprise, since the discovery of their bruitish falsehood 
will prove (as shall appear by this Treatise following) many 
ways advantageable to us, and make this forewarning a 
forewarning forever to prevent a greater mischief." 

On September 21, a hcense was granted Robert Myl- 
bourne to publish " A poeme on the late massacre in Vir- 
ginia ; " but I have never seen a copy. 

James I. had long been the especial advocate of the 
making of silk and wine in Virginia. He caused his ser- 
vant, John Bonnel, a Frenchman, to prepare "A Treatise 
on the Art of making silk, with directions for making of 
lodgings, and the breeding, nourishing and ordering of 
silkworms and for the planting of Mulbery trees, and all 
other things belonging to the Silk-Art. Together with 
instructions how to plant and dress Vines and to make 
Wine, and how to dry Raisins, Figs, and other Fruits, and 
to set olives, oranges. Lemons, Pomegranates, Almonds and 
many other fruits etc. set forth for the benefit of the two 
renowned and most hopefull sisters Virginia, and the Sum- 
mer-Islands." At the beginning was the king's letter (of 
July, 1622) to the treasurer. Council, and company, com- 
manding the present setting up of silk-works and planting 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 489 

of vines in Virginia, in preference to the cultivation of 
tobacco, and their letter of September 15, 1622, "to the 
Governor and Councell of State in Virginia for the strict 
execution of his Majesties Royall commands herein." At 
the end of the book is " A conclusion, with sundry pro- 
fitable remonstrances to the Colonies," which may have 
been written by the king himself. While the company was 
not wilHng to yield their freedom of election to the king, 
the managers seem to have entered heartily into his ideas 
relative to silk and wine. They determined to send good 
store of Bonnel's books to Virginia, " to every Master of a 
family one," for encouraging all to undertake these commo- 
dities. The Southampton, Captain James Chester, sailed in 
September, and the Abigail, Captain Samuel Each, in Octo- 
ber, with emigrants, supphes, arms, etc., for Virginia. 

Sir Dudley Carleton wrote from the Hague to Secretary 
Calvert on September 17, 1622 : " There are three of 
Count Mansf eld's eldest Captains dead there [at the camp 
of Schenken Schanz, to the east of Nymegen] in the space 
of three days. . . . Sir Thomas Gates, an ancient honest 
gentleman of our Nation, a Captain of foot," was one of 
them. Gates had been in service on the continent since 
the fall of 1620, and, although he did not die in Virginia, 
he died in the active service of his country. 

The Privy Council having ordered a revision of the 
patent for New England, the Council for that colony on 
July 22, 1622, desired Sir Henry Spelman (the historian, 
and father of Captain Henry Spelman, who was killed in 
Virginia on April 6, 1623) to take " some paynes therewith 
and afterwards solicit the Attorney." November 1, Dr. 
Barnaby Gooch, Sir Robert Mansell, Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, Sir Samuel Argall, and Captain Thomas Love of 
the New England Council, consulted Mr. John Selden and 
Mr. (Alderman) Robert Johnson concerning the heads of 
the new grand patent. From a subsequent order it appears 
that they also wished to have " our new pattent " con- 
fii-med by Parliament. In reply to a petition of the Coun- 



490 UNDER THE COMPANY 

cil for the affairs of New England, which was presented to 
the Privy Council on November 2, 1622, an order was 
given to Mr. Attorney-General Coventry to prepare a pro- 
clamation " fitt for his Majesty's signature, prohibiting all 
persons to resort unto the coasts of New England con- 
trariQ to his Majesties said Royall grant." This proclama- 
tion, prohibiting interloping and disorderly trading to New 
England in America, was signed by the king on November 
16. Two days thereafter the New England Council agreed 
" that there shall be a commission granted to Captain Fran- 
cis West to go to New England captain of the ship called 
the Plantation and admiral for that coast. And that a 
patent be granted to Captain Thomas Squibb, to be aiding 
and assisting to the admiral." Sir Ferdinando Gorges was 
desired to draw up the instructions for Captain West. 
November 29, the New England Council order, " that Capt 
Squibb have a commission for the John and Francis of 
London to go a fishing as Mr. Champernoun hath. Dec 
2"!^ That Capt. Squibb's commission for aiding & assist- 
ing of ye Admirall and for discovery and takeing possession 
of Mount Mansell for Sir Robert Mansell's use bee forth- 
with sealed. Dec 10*'' Capt. West's commission is this day 
sealed. The Virginia Court had on Nov. 2°? commissioned 
Mr. Newland's ship called the Plantation to make a voyage 
to Virginia, and on Dec 7*^ they also commissioned the 
John and Francis to go to Virginia and then for a fishing 
voyage." These entries show that the New England Coun- 
cil and Virginia courts were acting in accord. 

At the Virginia court of October 2, a letter from Cap- 
tain Ralph Hamor in Virginia was read. Rev. John Donne, 
the dean of St. Paul's, was selected to deliver the annual 
sermon before the company. And Mr. Casewell, Mr. Mell- 
ing, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Rider were chosen to be stew- 
ards for providing and ordering of the annual supper 
thereafter. The sermon was delivered in St. Michael's 
Church, Cornhill, on Wednesday, November 23, upon the 
eighth verse of the first chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 491 

ties. It was entered for publication on December 8, and 
three days after Dr. Donne wrote to Sir Thomas Roe, 
giving him " particulars of the sermons which Roe has had 
preached before the King and the Virginia Company." 
Thus it seems that Roe was the man who paid forty shil- 
lings per annum for these sermons. The supper, held after 
the sermon, was spread in Merchant-tailors' Hall. It was a 
grand affair, between three and four hundred being present, 
at a cost of three shilhngs (=^3.50) a man. 

At the court of November 16, Mr. John Ferrar passed 
one share to Mr. Edmund Hun ; Sir Henry Rich and his 
lady, four shares to Mr. Henry Piercy (or Pierry) ; and 
Henry Reynolds, two to William Vesy. 

Mr. George Ruggle (who had been one of the advisers 
of the managers of the enterprise for the last three years, 
and had written sundry treatises for the benefit of the plan- 
tation, in particular the one so highly commended by Sir 
Edwin Sandys, concerning the government of Virginia) 
died on November 29, leaving by will ,£100 for the educa- 
tion of infidels' (Indian) children. 

In August, John Paulett, then Lord St. John of Basing, 
afterwards the celebrated Marquis of Winchester, gave the 
Virginia Company fifty coats of mail, and the Michaelmas 
quarter court (November 30) gave him ten shares of land 
and adventure in Virginia, and elected him a member of 
his Majesty's Council for the company. 

December 14, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar passed two shares to 
Mr. George Mordent, and Henry Lord La Warr and the 
Lady Cicily two to Mr. Nicholas Downes. 

Captain John Martin had refused to yield the privileges 
granted to him in his original patent for Martin's Brandon 
in Virginia ; but the managers of the company had vir- 
tually annulled it for the time being, at least, by with- 
holding it, etc. He had been in England since the summer 
of 1621, trying to make a satisfactory settlement. On 
December 19, 1622, he wrote to his brother-in-law. Sir 
Julius Caesar [of the Privy Council], asking, " That your 



492 UNDER THE COMPANY 

honor would be pleased to order that my old patent may 
be brought in, and delivered to your honor's hands." 
The letter is indorsed by Sir Julius Caesar, " From my 
brother Martin touching the question between the Virginia 
Company and him." Martin was evidently anxious to have 
the matter settled. On December 25, he drew up for Sir 
Julius Csesar two papers ; the first, giving his idea of 
" the manner how Virginia, if his Majesty and his Council 
and Company agree, may be made a Royall plantation, for 
God's glory his Majesty's and Royall Progeny's ever hap- 
piness and the companies exceeding good, and all this land 
shall receive daily profit thereby." It is indorsed, " The 
manner how to make a Royall Plantation — It seemeth 
not improbable." It presents a crude idea of the shire 
system which was afterwards adopted in Virginia. The 
Rev. E. D. Neill, D. D., published this paper in the Mac- 
alester CoUege contributions, but the transposition of a 
page in the imprint has destroyed the sense of the docu- 
ment. The second paper gives Martin's idea of " The 
Manner howe to bring the Indians into subjection without 
an utter exterpation of them. Together with the reasons 
why it is not fitting utterly to make an exterpation of the 
Savages yett." And his ideas " for avoiding any future 
danger in our Colony that may grow." He regarded Ope- 
chancanough and the tribes under him, between the James 
and the Potomac, as the principal enemies of the English. 
They were also at enmity with the Monecans to the north- 
west, and the Potomacs and other nations to the northward ; 
and in friendship with the eastern shore, and with the tribes 
south of James River. 

In January, 1623, Sir Edward Conway succeeded Sir 
Robert Naunton as one of the secretaries of state. 

The plan for allotting land and tenants to the offices 
in Virginia would have been more satisfactory if the people 
could first have been acclimated, and might have been 
finally economical ; but under the circumstances its intro- 
duction proved too heavy an expense for the company's 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 493 

purse. " About 120 tenants were now due to the various 
officers in Virginia. To send them as the managers were 
' in equity and justice obHged to do ' would cost at the 
first penny £2400, etc. It was found to be hard to en- 
force the bargains made in England with those who had 
been sent to Virginia. . . . Besides, the Company was in' 
debt to the under officers and others in England, to the 
French vignerons and others in Virginia, and they had but 
little in hand. The various plans for public works had 
been prostrated by the massacre . . . and they could not 
be fairly resumed until the Indians were in subjection, 
which would take time," etc. At the court of October 17, 
some hot words passed between Mr. Samuel Wrote, the 
spokesman for his party, and the managers, about this state 
of affairs. These questions and the proposed contract for 
the sole importation of tobacco (over which there was still 
controversy) were now occupying a great part of the time 
of the courts. Under the contract for tobacco as outlined 
at the court of December 14, " which in all the most ma- 
terial points followed the judgment of the House of Com- 
mons in the late Parliament," the salaries of the various 
officers for the management thereof amounted to about 
c£2000. It was urged by the opposing party that this was 
extravagant ; that the company was in no condition to per- 
mit extravagance ; that £600 was ample. Su' Edwin San- 
dys was slated for director, with a salary of £500, and John 
Ferrar for treasurer, with a salary of £400. It was con- 
tended that there was no need for a director at all, and 
that £100 was enough pay for the treasurer. In the de- 
bate Mr. Wrote was very outspoken. It was reopened at 
the court of December 21, and Mr. Wrote was then si- 
lenced by suspension from the Council. The condition 
of affairs in Virginia being unknown, the managers had 
been meetins: the attacks with some caution. About Christ- 
mas several ships returned from Virginia with encouraging 
reports, and they then became aggressive. In January, 
1623, the courts took up again the wording of Mr. Wrote's 



4:94 UNDER THE COMPANY 

speech of December, and met his charges more boldly from 
court to court. On February 12, "the contract between 
the Lord Treasurer of England on the behalf of His Maj- 
esty and the Virginia Company touching the Importation 
of Tobacco," was read by the Privy Council and allowed 
by the board. But the dispute over the salaries and other 
questions at issue went on in the Virginia courts. At the 
preparative court of February 13, Sir Henry Mildmay told 
the company " that his Majesty had lately taken notice of 
these differences, as a hinderance to other main business 
of special consequence unto the plantation, and that his 
Majesty understands that divers adventurers have been 
discouraged from going on, and wonders that so many are 
willing to give over their shares." At the quarter court 
of February 15, Su^ Henry Mildmay told the court that 
the king " wished that verbal differences may be left and 
the business of the plantation go on." Sir Edward Sack- 
ville indorsed this, adding that " his Majesty invites us to 
forsake words and fall to actions, and at last to end to talk 
and begin to do, which would most advance his service and 
confer the greatest benefit unto the colony unto which he 
wished all happiness." But the managers seem to have 
been " wholly strangers to that wary circumspection which 
is commonly dignified by the name of prudence," in deal- 
ing with James I. After hearing the king's messages, they 
went on with their discussions. They excluded Mr. Wrote 
from the Council forever, and disfranchised him from the 
company as an unworthy member. The court then went 
to business ; added Lord Maynard, Lord De la Warr, Lord 
General [I could not make out this name]. Sir Lawrence 
Hide, and Colonel Ogle to his Majesty's Council for the 
company ; commissioned several vessels to go first to Vir- 
ginia, and then to make fishing voyages, and " upon the 
motion of Mr. Wm. Constable and Mr. Arthur Swaine a 
commission was given Mr. Reynolds, master of the William 
and John, to go a fishing solely for the relief of the Col- 
ony," etc. 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 495 

The court of February 22 again took up the contro- 
versy over the contract, the salaries, the monopoly of to- 
bacco, etc. ; and these contentions continued to occupy a 
great portion of the time of the subsequent Virginia and 
Somers Islands courts. 

February 28, the governor (Lord Cavendish) and com- 
pany of the Somers Islands presented charges to the Privy 
Council against Captain Nathaniel Butler for leaving the 
islands and going to Virginia. 

The news from Virginia, as given out to the public, 
continued to be encouraging ; but " they were really having 
very hard times in the Colony." On March 10, 1623, a 
friend in London wrote to Rev. Joseph Mead : " Yesterday 
came good news from Virginia, that the colony well sub- 
sists again ; hath driven Opochanknogh far oif, slain many 
of his men, in revenge of his last year's treacherous mur- 
dering of three hundred and forty of ours, and have got 
much corn from them." 

On March 14, 1623, the Privy Council renewed their 
order of November 3, 1621, requiring the Virginia Com- 
pany first to land all merchandise from Virginia in Eng- 
land, and pay his Majesty's customs thereon, before sending 
it into foreign parts for sale. They order that the ships 
very lately returned laden with tobacco, " conveyed into 
foreign parts without ever landing here," must be brought 
back upon penalties, and that the officials of the company 
must prevent the like fault hereafter. This order had been 
issued after hearing the statements of both parties at the 
Council Board. Lord Treasurer Cranfield was then on the 
side of the companies, with whom he had contracted. He 
told the court how the plantation had almost miraculously 
advanced under the management of Sir Edwin Sandys ; 
that the sending of some ships from the plantations to 
Holland was none of the company's act, but of particular 
adventurers to whom the ships and goods belonged. But 
the answer was not satisfactory to the major part of the 
Council, and they issued the order aforesaid. The subse- 



496 UNDER THE COMPANY 

quent Virginia courts in March were largely devoted to 
" the answer of the Companies for Virginia and the Somer 
Islands to the Right Honourable the Lords and others of 
His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council, touching 
their Lordships' proposition and command for the importing 
of Tobacco and all other merchandize from the said plan- 
tations into England." On March 29, after a long discus- 
sion. Lord Cavendish, Sir Edward Sackville, Sir John Dan- 
vers. Colonel Ogle, Sir Robert Killigrew, three deputies 
(John and Nicholas Ferrar, of the Virginia Company, and 
Gabriel Barber, of the Somers Islands Company), and Mr. 
White, or any four of them, were appointed to draw up a 
remonstrance of their said humble proposition and petition 
to the lords of the Privy Council, and to present the same 
unto their lordships in the name of the company. The 
paper was drawn, and afterwards (on March 30) presented 
by Lord Cavendish to the Privy Council. Sir Nathaniel 
Rich made answer thereto, and then presented, in a long 
paper, " Sundry Reasons against the contract and joynt 
stocke for the Virginia and Summer Islands Tobacco and 
against the monopoly of Tobacco." After hearing both 
sides, the Council determined to submit the matter to the 
king. Lord Cavendish made his report to the Virginia 
court on April 3. The lord treasurer wrote to the officers 
and farmers of the customs, and to Abraham and John 
Jacob, the collectors, that the contract was intended for 
the benefit of the colonies; but it had been decided by 
the Privy Council as rather prejudicial to them, and the 
tobacco was, therefore, to be delivered to the several pro- 
prietors thereof. The amounts which were to be paid to 
the king, the salaries, which had been increased to about 
£2500 per annum, and every other charge, was really to 
come out of the tobacco, — that is, out of the planters. 
As the size of the crop was an unknown quantity, the con- 
tractors would naturally protect themselves at the expense 
of the planters. The contract was not a fair one, but it 
was about as fair as those which went before and those 



ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 1622 — APRIL, 1623 497 

which . came after. From the first, tobacco has been be- 
tween the upper and nether millstone, and as much tax 
has always been ground out of it as possible. I have never 
used tobacco, and I am not prejudiced in its favor, but 
history demands the truth, and " the weed " was a corner- 
stone of our foundation. 

By will dated January 10 and proven April 4, 1623, 
William Whitehead of London, gentleman, bequeathed a 
sum of money toward a school or church to be erected in 
Martin's Hundred, Virginia. 

At the court of February 13, 1623, Francis Carter passed 
thirty shares : one to Christopher Vivian of London, cloth- 
worker ; fourteen to " Mr. Edward Palmer of the Middle 
Temple, London Esq. ; " one to Mr. Thomas Morse, haber- 
dasher ; one to James Carter, mariner ; one to Mr. Thomas 
Latham of London, gentleman ; eleven to Mr. Edward 
Palmer, Esq., and one to Richard Norwood, gentleman ; 
Sir William Twisden passed three shares to his son. Sir 
Roger Twisden ; William Burnham passed one bill of ad- 
venture of £12 10s, and one personal share to James 
Fotheringill ; Colonel John Ogle was admitted, and Mr. 
Mellino; wished a committee to find out whether or no the 
book of laws was published by the authority of the com- 
pany. On the motion of Sir John Brooke, a new patent 
was granted to Captain John Martin, according to the pro- 
mise of the Earl of Southampton, " with as ample privileges 
as had been granted to his lordship, or any other ancient 
adventurer, and that his shares of land mentioned in his 
former patent, or which shall become due for transportation 
of persons at his charge, may be laid out in Martin's Bran- 
don, of which he was formerly possessed." 

On February 14, the Earl of Southampton passed two 
shares to Mr. George Garrett; Mr. John Ferrar passed 
one share to Sir Robert Harley, and one to Elias Souther- 
ton. 

On February 15, Sir Humphrey Handford passed one 
share to Sir Timothy Thoruehill. 



498 UNDER THE COMPANY 

March 1, Mr. Melling passed two shares to Mr. Boothby ; 
and Mr. Gideon Delaune, two to his son. 

March 4, " Sir John Trevor ye father passed two shares 
to Sir John ye sonne ; " Mr. Viner, one share to Mr. Francis 
Bickly and one to Mr. Robert Alden ; and Mr. John Ferrar, 
one to Mathias Caldicott, Esq. 

March 17, Sir Edwin Sandys passed five shares to his son 
Henry ; Mr. John Budge, one to Mr. Middleton ; and Mr. 
WilHam Janson, two to Mr. Rich. Biggs. 

April 12, Sir Walter Ralegh's son admitted ; Mr. Webb 
passed one share each to John Gibbens, James Gibbens, 
and Lawrence Williams. 

The James returned from Virginia in the first part of 
April, and the letter received by her from the governor and 
Council of Virginia was read at the court of April 12. 
Captain Nathaniel Butler probably returned on this ship. 
At this court. Captain Martin accepted the new patent that 
was offered him by the company, and was authorized by the 
court to bring suit in Virginia against Sir George Yeardley 
for wrongs which he charged Yeardley with having done 
him in the time of his government (1619-1621). 



VIII 

VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 
SIR FRANCIS WYATT, GOVERNOR 

Mr. Truelove and his associates were not discouraged 
by the massacre ; but determined to uphold their settle- 
ment in Virginia. They sent their bark, the Truelove, of 
London, of about forty-six tons, James Carter, master, from 
England, in August, 1622, with supplies for their plan- 
tation. She sailed in consort with the James, of 120 tons, 
which carried the first letters of advice and direction from 
the Council in England to the governor and Council of 
Virginia relating to the late massacre and other impor- 
tant business. These ships reached Virginia in November 
or December, 1622. In their letter (written by Nicholas 
Ferrar) the Council are disposed to blame the officers for 
not taking precautions against the Indians, and accuse 
them of being " in parte instruments of contriving it." 
They also urge the colonists to redress " those two enor- 
mous excesses of apparell and drinkeing, the crie whereof 
cannot but have gone up to Heaven. ... In the strength 
of those faults undoubtedly, and the neglect of Divine wor- 
shipp, have the Indians prevailed, more than in your weak- 
ness." They urge that " an humble reconciliation be made 
with the Devine Master, by future conformitie unto His 
most just and holie lawes," ^ and that " they apply their 
labors especially to the setting up of staple comodities." 
They tell of the " King's disposition to grant the Companies 
the sole importation of Tobacco, and to give them certain 

1 Nicholas Ferrar, who wrote many " Arminian Nunnery," at Little Gid- 
of the letters from tlie company to ding, in Huntingdonshire, 
the colony, afterwards established the 



500 UNDER THE COMPANY 

arms ; " of the various preparations which they were making 
for the advancement of the colony. They say that " it is 
absolutely nessary for the good of the Colony to replant 
Henerico, The Colledge-lands, the Iron Works, Charles 
Cittie and Martin's Hundred." The last-named they leave 
" to the adventurers for that Hundred ; but the Governor 
and Council must speedily restore the rest. The college 
affairs were to be placed under the management of M"" 
George Sandys, and the Iron Works under M"" Maurice 
Berkley." " As for the Brick-makers they are to be held 
to their contract formerly made with Mr. Thorpe, so that 
when the opportunity shall be for the erecting of the 
fabricke of the CoUedge the materialls be not wanting." 
Instructions were sent as to the company's lands and ten- 
ants. Extermination of the Indians was urged and rewards 
were offered for their taking ; and " if any can take Opa- 
chancano himself, he shall have a great and singular reward 
from us. As for those Indians whom God used as instru- 
ments of revealing and preventing the totall ruine of you 
aU, we think a good respect and recompense due unto them, 
which by a good and carefuU education of them may best 
be expressed and satisfied, whereby they may be made 
capable of further benefits and favors." 

The Southampton, Captain James Chester, which left 
England in September, arrived in Virginia in December. 

About the middle of December, Captain Nathaniel But- 
ler went up the river from Jamestown in his barque, and, 
meeting with Captain William PoweU going against the 
Chickahominies, they joined forces and dispersed the In- 
dians, taking their corn and destroying their towns. 

The Success, of Barnstable, belonging to Mr. Delbridge, 
left the Bermudas about December 16, and arrived in Vir- 
ginia about Christmas. She brought " sutes of aparell, 
some frise [frieze] and other commodities" to be left in 
Virginia with Delphebus Canne for trade. The Abigail, 
Captain Samuel Each, arrived from England about the same 
time, with Lady Wyatt, wife of the governor; with the 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 501 

arms "which had been given to the colony by the king and 
by Lord St. John of Basing ; with forty barrels of powder ; 
the king's letters, and Mr. Bonnel's books, etc., in re silk, 
wine, etc. ; petitions, etc., relative to the estates of those 
killed in the massacre ; letters from the company, etc. 
Since May, the managers in England had been contracting 
with Captain Each, of this ship, for the building of a block- 
house or fort on the banks in James River, near Blunt 
Point, to control the channel of the river (on the shoals 
called " Tmdall's shouldes " in his map of 1608), near the 
present " Point of Shoals light." Mr. John Ferrar had 
borrowed £320 of Lady Rumney and Mr. Thomas Melling 
for furnishing out this expedition ; but a desperate " dis- 
ease originated on board [caused, it was said, by Duppa's 
bad beer], and most of the workmen [including the cap- 
tam] died en route or soon after landing." 

The company's letter to the governor and Council in 
Virginia, sent by this ship, had been ordered by the Virginia 
court of October 17. It states that " the late calamities 
that have befalne do much grieve but no whit daunt us, for 
we see no danger but rather advantage to be made thereby 
... as we cannot but think the seeding of this blood wiU 
be the Seed of the Plantation, for the addition of price hath 
much endeared the purchase." A sharp revenge on the 
Indians is advised. " The Arms given by the King should 
be made the beginning of a Publique Armorie to the Gen- 
erall Colony, as a perpetual testimony of his Majesty's royal 
bounty and favour." General directions, instructions, etc., 
are given to Governor Wyatt and Council, " to be watchful, 
maintain discipline, plant corn, raise staple commodities,'* 
etc. Always expecting an attack from some of the con- 
stantly passing Spanish fleets, " they thought it necessary 
above all things to secure the river from suddaine Invasion 
by Shipping," ^ and, with this object in view, " they now 

1 I have not found the dispatches be sure that Olivarez was kept fully 
to Philip IV. from his ambassadors informed regarding affairs in Virginia, 
in London at this time, but we may the massacre, etc. 



502 UNDER THE COMPANY 

send Capt Each to build a fort in the river above Blunt 
Point to command the passage ; the adventurers of Martin's 
and Southampton hundred had ordered their officers to aid 
in building this Fort ; the Company's tobacco and the joynt- 
stock tobacco for Glass, Furr, Maids, and shipwright rolls 
was to be sent home in the Abigail. Instructions relative 
to the magazine under Mr. Edward Blany [Blaine] ; debts 
due the Company for the youths sent in the Duty and 
other debts to be collected by Mr George Sandys, their 
Treasurer ; Sassafras, wanted," etc. The governor was to 
permit no one to leave the colony who was in debt to the 
company " until the said debt was paid." 

The James, the Truelove, and the Hopewell, returned 
for England early in February. The last-named ship car- 
ried a great part of the magazine tobacco by order (as Mr. 
Blany affirmed) out of England, although the governor 
wanted the tobacco to go by the Abigail, as the company 
requested, under the contract with Captain Samuel Each. 
All of these ships carried letters to England. 

The letter from the governor and Council of Virginia 
(written by George Sandys) to the London Company of 
January f^, 162|, sent by the James, begins : " We cannot 
but acknowledge God's great goodness that after those last 
great disasters hath stirred up the harte of his most excel- 
lent Majesty to bestow upon us so Royall a present of 
Armes & munition which we resolve to imploy to ye honor 
of our Countrey and revenge of his subjects bloud for which 
munition and his gratious intention of supplying us with 
people we beseech you to present our most humble thanks 
to his sacred Majesty," etc. They go on to tell what re- 
venge they have already taken uj)on the Indians. " And 
now is Capt. Tucker in the River of Rapahanock to take 
revenge upon them as Confederates with Apochankeno. . . . 
[But] they are an enemy not suddenlie to be destroyed 
with the sworde by reason of their swyftness of foote, and 
advantages of the woode, to which upon all our assaults 
they retyre. But by the way of starving and all other 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622— AUGUST, 1G23 503 

meanes that we can possibly devise we will constantly pur- 
sue their extirpation. By computation, and confession of 
the Indians themselves, we have slayne more of them this 
yeere, than hath been slayne before since ye begininge of 
ye Colonic. 

" Whereas in the beginning of your Letters by the 
Truelove you pass so heavie a censure upon us as if we 
alone were guiltie, [but] you may be pleased to consider, 
what instructions you have formerly given us, to wynn the 
Indians to us by a kind entertayning them in our howses, 
and, if it were possible, to co-habit with us, and how impos- 
sible it is for any watch and ward to secure us against se- 
cret enemies that live promiscuouslie amongst us, and are 
harbored in our bosomes, all Histories and your owne dis- 
course may sufficyentlie informe you," etc. " The removall 
to the Eastern shore was only a thing in dispute ; they had 
since determined to remain at James citty, having carefully 
repaired the decays and invited all men to build there," 
" which proceeded cheerfully on, till your letters dyspers- 
inge men againe wherein we submit our judgments to your 
Commands." "Mr Barkley and Mr Southerne regard it 
as impossible to proceed with the Iron works. The Coun- 
cil wished to assault Apochancono himselfe, for which 300 
men were thought necessary and not above 180 could be 
levied in The Colony, whereof 80 at least were only service- 
able for carrying of corn." Much of the letter relates to 
business matters, — ingrossing, sassafras, silk-grass, silkworm 
seed, vines, glass-works, etc. They seemed to have honestly 
tried to raise other commodities ; but tobacco remained the 
mainstay of the plantation. 

George Harrison's letter of February 3, to his brother 
John, was also sent by the James. (He called the ship 
the Little James. Could this have been the ship of that 
name then en route for New England ?) It relates chiefly 
to business matters (esjDecially tobacco matters) between his 
brother, Mr. Bennett, and himself ; but he says, " since the 
Massacre there is far more dead than was by it slayn, and 



504 UNDER THE COMPANY 

now at this time a great many sick, with no hopes of life. 
This present day died Capt. Powell that was gunner of 
James citty under the generall. Of all the whole number 
of servants we brought in the Sea Flower [1621-1622] 
there is not left above ten." He urges his brother to send 
good wines, butter, cheese, sugar, soap, and good " sini- 
ment waters " to trade in Virginia, assuring him " for ^50 
a £100," and then to send his ship back to England on 
a fishing voyage via the northern fisheries. He mentions 
a former letter sent to his brother by the Conqueror (of 
which ship I have no other record), and that Mr. Bennett 
had a brother living in Virginia. 

Mr. George Sandys sent a private letter (written a few 
days later than Mr. Harrison's) to Mr. Ferrar, by the Hope- 
well, from which I extract the following : — 

" Worthy Sir : Be this my excuse that I in particular 
write not to ye generally [^generality f — the treasurer, 
Council, and company, — that is, the public]. I have no- 
thing wherewith to palliat their humors, who I too well per- 
ceave will both judge and condemn whatsoever succeeds 
not to their desires without either inquiry of the truth or 
necessity of our actions. But we whom the hand of heaven 
hath humbled profess the inability of ye best Counsell & 
indeavors that are not supported by ye divine assistance 
neither have their aspertions much troubled us that are con- 
firmed with innocency and habituall patience." He goes 
on to tell of the arrival of Sir William Newce in October, 
1621, of his early death, and of the disposition of his few 
surviving servants, to Captain Wilcocks, Captain Roger 
Smyth, Captain William Tucker, Captain Crashaw, etc. 
" I am afraid there be little tobacco left which the maga- 
zine hath not receaved . . . 60,000 waight being the 
most that this year's crop hath produced. As for ye Duty 
Boyes they think much to be brought to a backe reconinge: 
since they paid as much as was demaunded for them & re- 
ceaved acquitances. Yet Sir George Yardley will pay the 
over plus for those which he reserved to himself ; the like 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 505 

offer was made by Capt. [Wm.] Powell (who is now with 
God) but that they are not able at this time to discharge 
it. Sir George complaines not without cause, who I believe 
hath lost this year two thirds of his estate. And to give 
him his dew he hath behaved himself very nobly in ye ser- 
vice of ye Country to his great expenses. But what I can 
I will do & send you the accomptes by the Abigail. 

" The shipwrights hath fay led with ye rest in this gen- 
erall decay : Wherein if you blame us, you must blame the 
hand of God that hath taken away Capt Barwick, etc. 
The ill success of ye glass works is all most a' quail unto 
this. . . . The summer coming on Capt Norton dyed with 
all save one of his servants. The Italians fell extremely 
sick yet recovered ; but I conceave they would gladly make 
the work to appear unfeasable, that they might by that 
means be dismissed for England. The fier hath now beene 
six weekes in ye furnace and yet nothing effected. They 
claim that the sand will not run & now I am sending up ye 
river to provide them better if it be to be had, &c. The 
silkworm seed that came in these last shipps are well con- 
ditioned for the most part. . . . Many vines planted the 
last year, but they came to nothing out of ye trouble of ye 
times, or want of art, or perhaps ye badnes of ye cuttings 
etc. We have taken an-other order that every plantation 
impale two acres of grounds and imploy the sole labor of 
two men in the business [making vineyards] for ye term 
of 7 years . . . and they are to build a house of two storyes, 
well seiled, for silkworms, by this meanes I hope this work 
will go really forward. ... I have hired a ship to carry ye 
Colledge men to their plantation, which is now under sayle 
I pray God it succeed well, but I like not this stragelinge 
& if all had beene of my minde, I would rather have dis- 
obayed your commands. . . . Such a pestilent fever rageth 
this winter amongst us ; never knowne before in Virginia, 
by the infected people that came over in ye Abigail, who 
were poisened with stinkeinge beer all falling sick & many 
dying, every where dispersing the contagion, and the fore- 



506 UNDER THE COMPANY 

running Summer hatli been also deadly unto us." He 
tells " of his heart-breakings to see the ill success of their 
affayeres," etc. It " remaines that some things I should 
write of Virginia whereof (be not offended that I speake ye 
truth) you know but little, & wee not much more, but this 
I must defer until a time of more leasure . . . but with-all 
advise you that you adventure not loo much in joynt 
stockes, nor in those projects which sure fayle by ye death 
of ye commander & principall workemen, for ye life of one 
in every faculty is not to be relied upon ; such is ye state 
of this Country. As for our other crosses, &c, I had 
rather others should screech them, then that they should 
proceede from my pen, but both you and me must submit 
ourselves to ye judgments of God, to whose protection I 
commend you & rest — Yours most assured, G. S." 

Caj^tain Nathaniel Butler left Virginia about this time, 
and, I believe, on board the James. We must consider 
the actual condition in which he really found Virginia in 
the winter of 1622-1623 ; the losses which had been sus- 
tained by the massacre in the spring of 1622, by the 
sickness of the summer and fall, and the pestilence from 
the Abigail in the winter, with short crops, and a war 
waging with the Indians. He may weU have felt that it 
was time for something to be done — some change to be 
made, — for some one to " screech the crosses." And, 
under the circumstances, we could scarcely expect a very 
different report from the one which he made to the king 
(in. ; see p. 518). While it was not strictly fair in some 
things, and may not have been strictly true in others, it is 
not much worse in many things than the letters sent from 
Virginia to the company in England at this time. It was 
by this same token that the usual spring census of 1623 
was not made public ; but it seems certain that over 1300 
people died en route, or were killed or died in Virginia 
between February, 1622, and February, 1623 ; and that 
Butler really left, as was claimed, but few, if any, more 
English in Virginia than were there at the end of Sir 
Thomas Smythe's administration in November, 1619. 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 507 

Almost all things naturally appear at a disadvantage in 
the desolate winter season. Copies of many letters sent 
from Virginia in February, March, and April, 1623, have 
been preserved. Some of them convey a worse impression 
than Butler's Unmasking (III. ; see p. 518) ; but as the 
spring opened the general tone became more hopeful. 
While stating the desperate estate of the colony, they show 
a growing determination to go forward with their work at 
all hazards, to plant a full crop, and to fall on the Indians 
in the autumn. They had reached the conclusion that it 
was necessary to exterminate the Indians before the English 
could occupy the country with any safety or satisfaction, 
and this had now become the leading object. " On the 
Sunday before Shrovetyde the English had a combat with 
the Indians, and took two of them aHve, who reported that 
15 of the English were still held as prisoners." Other 
accounts said that " they had killed all the male prisoners 
and only preserved the females." 

The Seaflower left England late in 1622, or early in 
1623, with supplies for Virginia ; stopping at the Bermu- 
das she caught on fire in some way, and was burnt up 
about March 28. The people in Virginia had learned that 
this ship had been sent with provisions for their relief, and 
from March to July they were looking daily over the 
waters most anxiously, but in vain, for a sight of her sails. 
The hopes of the famishing plantation were centred on 
her ; and almost every letter expressed an earnest desire 
for her early arrival. 

The Tiger, which had been commissioned in England to 
trade with the Indians in Virginia for corn, " being set 
forth Avith the pinnace of Vice -Admiral Pountis, under 
Captain Spilman, a warie man well acquainted with their 
treacheries — having been at their betraying of Capt. John 
Ratcliffe — and the best linguist of the Indian tongue in 
the country. They went up the Potomac to trade with the 
Anacostan Indians [near the present site of Washington 
city] with Vvliom Spilman was acquainted. Where landing 



508 UNDER THE COMPANY 

with his men in armour the Indian King asked why he 
came to trade so armed ? And becoming convinced of the 
sincerity of the Indians, the next day April 6*^, some 26 
Enghsh coming ashore disarmed thinking to trade were all 
cut of by the Indians," being taken by " some surprise 
not a piece discharged." Captain Spelman and nineteen 
others were killed ; Captain Henry Fleet and the rest taken 
prisoners. The Indians took the pinnace of Pountis, a 
shallop, and a small boat, and then attempted to take the 
Tiger, but the four or five sailors and some few landmen 
aboard " whiffed up sayles and went faster then theyr 
Canowes." As an illustration of the differences in the evi- 
dences, the number of canoes in the attack is variously 
stated at from " 10 canoes " to " about 200 canoes, with 
above 1000 Indians." The Tiger returned empty to New 
Port Newce, about April 12, " so that if the Seaflower 
come not quickly on, there will hardly be found a preserva- 
tion against famine." 

Since April, 1622, the English had been killing the 
Indians wherever they could, and they had been doing the 
like by the English. How many they had killed in all I 
do not know ; but after this surprise of Spelman, Governor 
Wyatt wrote to Mr. Ferrar, " Indeed all trade with them 
must be forborne, and without doubt either we must cleere 
them or they us out of the Country." Their attack on the 
Tiger was the subject of much talk and uneasiness in the 
colony, for hitherto " they had alwayes much feared a 
ship," and it had always been regarded by the English as 
a sure refuge. 

In the fall of 1622, Captain Francis West, being then 
in England, presented a petition to King James, signed by 
himself, William Claybourne, John Brewer, Robert Sweet, 
and William Capps, " on the behalf of themselves and the 
rest of your poore distressed subjects of the Virginia Plan- 
tation," stating their grievances, and that the " Plantation 
will presently sink and become of no use at aU unless your 
Majestic out of your gratious and loyall care of all your 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 509 

subjects and of all the parts of your dominions wilbee gra- 
tiously pleased to take them into your immediate care and 
protection ; to make the tobacco your own commoditie ; to 
take a convenient proportion yearly from the colony at a 
reasonable price — Whereof your Majestic may make an 
assured gaine, and the Planters have means to subsist for 
the present & to apply themselves for the future to plant 
some real commoditie there to which that Country is apt 
and fitt/' etc. The king gave them a favorable answer, 
and wrote to the governor of Virginia on the subject. His 
letter has not been found, but it was probably brought to 
Virginia by Captain Francis West, who arrived in the spring 
on the John and Francis, which according to the Virginia 
records came via " Canada ; " but evidently this should be 
by " New England." The ship belonged to Sir Robert 
Mansfield, and while it had been commissioned in England 
by both companies, a special object of the voyage was the 
taking possession of " Mount Mansell " (now known as 
" Mount Desert ") for the owner of the ship. On April 
9, Francis West, John Potts, Samuel Mathews, Roger 
Smyth,^ William Claybourne, and William Tucker wrote 
to Henry Viscount Mandeville, the lord president of the 
Privy Council in England, relative to the king's said letter 
to the governor of Virginia, " signifying his pleasure to 
take the commodity of tobacco to his own use, and requiring 
that we should here contract with the Burgesses of ye sev- 
erall plantations for the same on his behalfe, together with 
instructions to that purpose from the Attorney generall, 
whereunto may it please your lordship in all humbleness 
of duty, we have returned our answer (as we were required 
by our Petitions) and declaration sent in these ships, hum- 
bly shewing unto his highness, the great prejudice that 
this colony hath receaved by divers contracts made wholy 
without our consent or privity, &c. But since all former 
contracts are dissolved & that his Majestic hath ben pleased 

^ Mr. Neill was mistaken in think- ley. They were nearly of the same 
ing him a son of John Smith of Nib- age. 



510 UNDER THE COMPANY 

to extend his princely care for the estabhshment of this 
Colony, which without the supportation of his Royall hand 
must necessarily sinke — we have regayned new hopes to 
our dispayring minds in assured confidence that all factions 
silenced, and the private intentions of others prevented — 
our just petitions will receive a favourable admittance & 
hearing." And they implore his lordship, who had " here- 
tofore been the greatest means to overthrow the former 
contracts, so now again to continue his protection," etc. 
I have not found their " answer and declaration " to the 
king ; but they reached the Royal Commission in England 
before the following July, and were probably sent by the 
Abigail, with the numerous letters written in April, 1623. 

Mr. George Sandys, in his letters to his brothers. Sir 
Samuel and Sir Myles Sandys, of April 9, criticises the 
management of his brother Sir Edwin and others severely. 
" But I pray God their contemplations do not so overswaye 
our experience that all in the end come to nothing : who 
thinke every thing done as soon as conceived (how unfea- 
sable soever) and so highten their proceedings that it is 
impossible for our Actions to go along with their rejDorts." 
" But men that are ambitious to bee counted wise will 
rather justifie then acknowledge their errors, and impute 
the fault to the execution when it is indeed in the project." 
He tells them of many past trials in the colony : " The 
Governor and the Councellors, themselves were constrayned 
to watch nightly by turns." " Extreme hath been the 
mortalitie of this year, which I am afraid hath doubled 
the number of those which were massacred ; yet with our 
small and sicklie forces we have discomforted the Indians 
'round about us, burnt their houses, gathered their corn 
and slain not a few ; though they are as swift as Roebucks, 
like violent lightening they are gone as soon as perceived, 
and not to be destroyed but by surprize or famine. They 
now begin to desire a peace and after the restitution of 
their [English] prisoners, for whose sakes we seem to be 
inclinable thereunto, we will trie if we can make them as 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 511 

secure as we were [at the time of the Massacre], that we 
may follow their example in destroying them." 

The governor and Council's letter of April 13, to the 
treasurer and Council in England, relates the coming of 
Chan CO (" who had lived much amongst the English, and 
by revealing the plot to divers saved their lives") and 
Camohan (" an Actor in the massacre at Martin's Hun- 
dred "), as messengers from the great king suing for peace, 
" that they might be suffered to plant at Pamunky and 
their former seats, which if they might peaceably do, they 
would send home our people (being about twenty) whom 
they saved alive since the Massacre, and would suffer us to 
plant quietly also in all places." The English sent Chanco 
back, but retained Camohan, whom they afterwards executed 
for his part taken in the massacre. Within a week after 
Chanco's return, he came back with Mrs. Boyse (the chief 
of the prisoners) " apparelled like an Indian Queen, which 
they desired we should take notice, of." The other prison- 
ers were not returned, they said, because of some threaten- 
ing speeches made by Robert Poole. " If they send home 
our people and grow secure upon this Treaty we shall have 
the better advantage both to surprise them and cut down 
their corn by knowing where they plant ; which otherwise 
they vnW plant in such corners as it will not be possible for 
us to find out." The letter goes on to tell of business 
matters, etc. ; the death " of Capt W"^ Newce (Apl ir^) ; 
the return of as many to their Plantations as have desired 
the same ; Duppa's beer ; the petitions regarding the estates 
of those killed by the Indians ; the death of Captain Each ; 
the place selected by him a mere oyster bank, ' a false 
loose ground ; ' but Capt. Roger Smyth observing that a 
fort upon the shore would as fully command the channell, 
they intend out of hand to fall upon that work, as soon as 
possible," etc. This letter is ver;y considerate of the man- 
agers in England ; but Governor Wyatt, in a letter of 
April 14, to his father, criticises them as severely ps Mr. 
George Sandys, concluding his remarks : " I often wish 



512 UNDER THE COMPANY 

little Mr. Farrar here, that to his zeale he would add know- 
ledge of this Country. I have made bould to trouble you 
with thus much, because if by occasion you be with them 
you may perhaps here us bitterlie censured and your au- 
thoritie may demand reason for it — which I know they 
cannot give without dissembling our condition and num- 
bers here." 

The Margaret and John, accounted a loss ship, after a 
long and tedious passage, arrived about April 14, having 
been much distressed for want of sufficient provisions. 
" Which caused 9 or 10 of our passengers to leave the ship 
and stay in the West Indies, or St Vincents. 20 dyed and 
all sick except 3 or 4." Richard Norwood, the engineer, 
came in on her. A day or so after Mr. Gookin's ship, the 
Providence, with John Clarke as pilot, arrived at New Port 
Newce with forty men for him and thirty passengers besides. 
Which ship had also been long out and suffered extremely 
in her passage. 

" Of all Mr Gookin's men which he sent out the last 
year we found but seven — the rest being all killed by the 
Indians, and his plantation ready to fall to decay." After 
the arrival of these ships the colonists appealed " to God to 
send us some shij^s with provisions." 

April 24, Edward Hill wrote letters from Elizabeth City 
to his brother, Mr. John Hill, mercer in Lombard Street, 
and to his father-in-law, Mr. Richard Boyle in Blackfriars, 
telling that he had lost " last year, by reason of the Indians 
.£100 worth of cattle and I fear this wilbe as bad ; for 
this is the worst year here that ever I saw like to be." On 
the same day Secretary Davison wrote to Mr. John Ferrar 
promising " to send him by the next ship a perfect cata- 
logue of the names of all the people that dyed or were 
slayne by the Indyans since the massacre & of all that re- 
main alive." And Mr. P. Arundell writes about a squabble 
over mulberry leaves between the chief men of Captain 
Whitaker and of Mr. Anthony Bonal (Bonnell), etc. Mr. 
Chri;^topher Best writes to Dr. John Woodall of the death 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622— AUGUST, 1623 513 

of many of his young cattle ; and adds, " some freemen 
went into the woods to kill a deer and shot your calf ; but 
they are consigned to serve the colony seven years for it." 
Dr. William Rowlsley wrote to his brother : " The country 
is fullie determyned this summer to set mainly upon the 
Indians, which if it please God to prosper we shall have 
again a plentifull countrey, but in the mean time we shall 
want if our friends in England do not stand to us." To 
illustrate the high prices then obtaining in Virginia he says 
he had given ten shillings for a hen, and eighteen pounds 
for a cow, etc. 

The officials in Virginia and in England each blamed the 
other for the disasters ; but, as matter of fact, no one was 
to blame for the greatest misfortunes. The massacre could 
not be foreseen, and no specific for the malaria was known. 
I cannot diagnose the disease brought in by the Abigail 
and the Margaret and John ; but from John Baldwin's 
statement it must have been a pestilence. It was so rapid 
that mortification began to take place almost before death. 
To use his words : " They die Hke sheep with the rots, 
and rot above ground." Yellow fever committed great 
havoc among the emigrants to Virginia at different times, 
and a similar disease prevailed among the Indians of Mas- 
sachusetts during 1616-1622 ; but I doubt if this pestilence 
was yellow fever. Dr. William Rowlsley says that the sick- 
ness was as fatal among the kine and swine as among the 
people ; but he ventures no opinion about it, as to whether 
it was the same sickness which attacked man and beast, or 
otherwise. 

Other letter-writers at this time were Thomas Nicholls to 
Sir John Wolstenholme ; Richard Frethorne to his father, 
and to Mr. Robert Bateman ; Peter Arundell to Thomas 
Wheatley, William Canning, and John Ferrar; Lady Wyatt 
to her sister Sandys, and to her mother ; Richard Norwood 
to his father, and to " Mr. Marshall at the signe of ye 
Tobacco Rowle in Tower street London ; " William Hobart 
to his father ; Thomas Best to his brother ; Delphebus 



514 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Canne to Mr. Lawrence Ley, merchant, and to Mr. John 
Delbridge ; Henry Brigg to his brother " Thomas Brigg, 
merchant at ye Custome House Key," relative to his bad 
treatment by his master Mr. Atkins ; George Sandys to 
Samuel Wrote, John Ferrar, and John Tradescant ; Wil- 
liam Capps to Dr. Thomas Winston, Mr. John Ferrar, etc. 

May 21, a commission was given Captain Roger Smith, 
who had lived twelve or thirteen years in the wars in the 
Low Countries, to build a fort at Warraskoyack upon "the 
shore where we might as well command shipping, as from 
the oyster banks of Capt Each, and with all have a strong 
plantation the grounds being rich and good. The place 
selected is naturally almost intrenched about with deep 
ditches which by the grace of God shall not want our utter- ' 
most endeavours in the finishing. We shall want great 
ordnance, whole culvering & demi-culvering at the least. 
And if God shall prosper us we shall frame a platforme 
hereafter & sincke it on the opposite flat [Tindall's Shoals] 
large enough to containe 5 or 6 pieces & thereby make the 
passage more unpassable for an enemy." 

The New Netherland, under Captain Cornelis Jacobsen 
May, landed the Walloons at the mouth of the Hudson 
River in May, 1623. They had formerly proposed coming 
to Virginia, and their destiny w^as still under the same star. 

In May, the governor again sent Chanco back to the 
great king to explain the threatening speeches of Robert 
Poole, " suffering him to carry certain bonds from the 
friends of the prisoners," and asking the king to return 
the rest of them home. About the last of May, Istan, the 
great king, sent Sir Francis Wyatt word that " if he would 
send up some Englishmen to tell them that they might 
plant their corn securely, he would deliver all the rest of 
the captive English he had, and would also deliver his bro- 
ther Opachancano (who was the author of the massacre) 
into the hands of the English either alive or dead." Early 
in June, Captain William Tucker with twelve others were 
sent " in a shalope under colour to make peace with them." 



VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 28, 1622 — AUGUST, 1623 515 

On June 7, they came to Pamunkey, the chief seat of Ope- 
chancanough, and a great many Indians came to the river- 
side to speak with them ; " and were in talke first to have 
home our Enghsh people, which the Indians granted and 
sent for them presently to cause them to go in the shalope 
to goe home, which they did — seven of them. Our Eng- 
lish seeing a fit oportunitie (after they had accomplished 
their desire) there was a watch word given — when they 
shot and killed some 40 Indians including 3 of the chiefest, 
whereof one of them was Apachaniken [Opechancanough], 
the commander of all the other Indians." It was then said 
that " he had come to his ends by means more suitable to 
his deserts, than perhaps agreeing with Christian simplici- 
tie." On June 24, the governor and Council wrotq to the 
Earl of Southampton : " We have, by a successful strata- 
gem, not only regained our people, but cut off some Kings 
and divers of the greatest commanders of the enemy, among 
whom we are assured Opachankano is one, it being impos- 
sible for him to escape, the design being chiefly upon his 
person and that happily exposed to the greatest danger." 
(But " the old fellow was not dead yet.") They state that 
" the Fort goeth cheerfidly on ; " that " it was proposed to 
run a pale from Martin's Hundred to Chescack, as it would 
win the forest and make the land below between the rivers 
inaccessible to the savages." They desire to know " whether 
we shall make prize of such Dutch and French as we shall 
find to trade with the savao^es within our limits." Governor 
Wyatt in his previous letter of April 17, to John Ferrar, 
had told him that " the Margarett and John lighted in the 
company of a Dutch ship, who said he would come hither. 
I should be glad to know what is to be done in such cases." 
He also said the people in Virginia were so hard to manage 
that he advised " some commission for a Marshall Court, 
at least ad terrorem, with what limitations you shall please 
for case of Hfe, it may do much good." 

The construction of the fort (opposite Point of Shoals 
light) was soon interrupted by " the usual summer sickness 



516 UNDER THE COMPANY 

among the new comers " — those not acclimated — and by 
the scarcity of provisions. 

In the spring a barque was sent to the Bermudas for fruit, 
etc. ; but I have no account of the voyage. A barque ar- 
rived from Canada (New England ?) in June and returned 
again about July 12. Delphebus Canne sent a letter by her 
to Mr. John Delbridge telhng him of the sale of his fish, 
etc. The land was still destitute of food, and they were 
still looking over the ocean in vain for the Seaflower ; but 
" there was hkely to be a great crop this year for thanks 
be unto God we have hither-to had good and seasonable 
weather for the fruits of the earth." They were " then 
looking for 3 ships from Newfoundland and 3 from Canada 
[New England ?] so we will be well stored with fish." 

One of these ships, the Furtherance, left Canada for 
Virginia probably in June " with above 40,000 of that 
fish which is little inferior to Lyng, for the supply of the 
colony, which fish is not less worth then .£600," and ar- 
rived in July. "The Samuel, the Ambrose, and other ships 
also arrived in Virginia about this time. 

The governor issued commissions to several to go against 
the Indians, — to Captain William Pierce (who had been 
appointed captain of the governor's guard on June 8), 
the lieutenant of James City, to go against the Chicka- 
hominies; Captain Samuel Matthews against the Tanx 
Powhatans ; Captain Nathaniel West against the Appomat- 
tox and Tanx Wyanokes ; and Captain William Tucker, 
commander of Kecoughtan and the lower parts, against the 
Nansemonds and Warraskoyacks ; and all of these com- 
manders fell upon the Indians on the same day, August 2, 
1623. A week after Captain Isaac Madison marched 
against the Great Wyanokes, and Captain Tucker went the 
second time against the Nansemonds. In each of these 
expeditions " they slaughtered the Indians, cut down their 
corn, burnt the houses which they had re-edified ; and had 
so served the rest if that time of our greatest scarcity had 
not constrained us to desist. But as soon as our corn is 
ripe we shall set upon them again." 



IX 

ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 

HENRY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TREASURER; NICHOLAS 
FERRAR, DEPUTY-TREASURER 

The news of " the fatall blow of the Massaker" in Vir- 
ginia had tended to moderate the claims of the administra- 
tion somewhat, but the good reports brought by the ships 
which arrived about Christmas, 1622, had put them on the 
aggressive again, and early in 1623 (I.) " A Declaration of 
the present state of Virginia comparatively with what had 
been done in former times " was drawn up by the order of 
the Earl of Southampton. Comparisons |re apt to be 
odious, and, when they are unjust, we cannot expect those 
to whom they are unjust to receive them with silence. 
For "silence gives consent." When the matter of this 
declaration became known, Alderman Johnson and others, 
who had the management " in former times," drew up (II.) 
" A Petition to the King," asking him " to appoint a com- 
petent commission under the great seal of England to 
consider the case and to report the true state of the planta- 
tion at the end of Sir T. Smythe's government and since." 
The first part of this paper as entered in the Ferrar 
copy of the company records ^ is not exactly as in the ori- 
ginal, which is as follows : " Most gracious Sovereygne — 
Amongst the manie memorable workes of your Majesties 
Gracious Reigne that of the English Plantation in the 
parts of America called Virginia is not the least, the be- 
ginninge of which enterprise beinge the first forrayn Colo- 
nie planted by our Nation, accompanied with so great a 
charge to furnish shipps and men & to make yearlie more 

^ See Neill's Virginia Company of London, p. 387. 



518 UNDER THE COMPANY 

supplies, without any present hope o£ retribution, was suf- 
fitient at the first views and computation thereof to have 
daunted & discouraged the most resolute & forward Ad- 
venturers. But by Gods assistance and your Majesties gra- 
cious encouragement with our discreet & mild Treasurer, 
[Sir Thomas Smythe] first nominated and appointed by 
your Majestic, under whose government all sorts of men 
were in such kinde & friendhe manner invited to ensfasre 
themselves that notwithstanding many difficulties that great 
action, which otherwise had perished in the birth, not only 
took life and being, but proceeded in a most hopeful and 
comfortable course for many years together, with unity & 
love amongst ourselves, and quiet entertaynment with those 
Salvage Indiens by which means sundry of those infidels & 
some of eminent sort were convierted to Christian rehgion. 
Staple comodyties began to be raysed and imported into 
this Kingdom," etc. 

Before any action was taken on this petition Captain 
Nathaniel Butler returned from Virginia, and the king com- 
manded him to write his (III.) " Declaration of the present 
state of Virginia," whigh was afterwards called " The Un- 
masking of Virginia.". ' The king was considering II. and 
III. on April 20, at which time the matter was brought to 
the attention of the managers of the company, and two 
days thereafter (on Easter eve) an extraordinary court was 
held for the purpose of taking steps to meet the issue 
which had now been definitely made. They determined to 
present (IV.) "A Counter Petition to his Majesty" asking 
to have the case submitted to his Privy Council. " And the 
Lord Cavendish presented to the court two several writings, 
which being revised it was determined to have delivered to 
the king." They were (I.) " A Declaration," etc., formerly 
written, and (V.) "^A Relation of the late proceedings of 
the Virginia and Somer Islands Companies,' in answer to 
some importations laid upon them, together with the dis- 
covery of the grounds of such unjust objections and a 
remedy proposed for the better avoyding the like incon- 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 519 

veniencies hereafter." " Which discourse his Lordship 
said himself had drawn up for satisfaction of some very 
noble personages." The paper gives a brief review of 
sundry events (from his lordship's standpoint) from the 
troubles over the Treasurer, in 1619, to date. In matters 
relative to government the Sandys party papers are the 
strongest ; but the fact is more apt to be appreciated now 
than then. When dealing with matters of business the 
papers of Smythe's party are more practical, and I have 
found them generally the more correct. The management 
of the business portion of the enterprise under that party 
was evidently the most businesslike. However, the history 
of the movement during either administration cannot be 
based on such evidences as the opponent parties were now 
furnishing. In IV. Cavendish replies to the allegation that 
" the government as it now stands is DeinoGi^atical and 
tumultuous, and therefore fit to be altered and reduced to 
the hands of some few persons." He says, "It is true 
that, according to your Majestys institutions in their let- 
ters-patents, the government hath some shew of a demo- 
cratic form, which is in this case the most just, and most 
profitable, and the most apt means to work the ends and 
effects desired by your Majesty for the benefit, wealth, and 
increase of those plantations, by which the profit of your 
Majesty, the adventurer, and planter will rise together." 

That same evening Captain Butler wrote to Sir Nathan- 
iel Rich that the court had brought up again " my Lord of 
Warwick in the point of the Treasurer," and suggested that 
the Earl should be " hasted in his return from Rocheforde." 

The documents I., IV., and V. were presented to the 
king on Monday, April 24, by the committee appointed for 
the purpose, — Lord Cavendish, Lord De la War, Sir John 
Brooke, Colonel Ogle, and Sir Edward Sackville. Some of 
the opponent party being present led to a discussion, in 
which Sir Edward Sackville is said to have " carried him- 
self so malapertly, that the King was fain to take him 
down soundly and roundly ; but, by means of the Lord 
Treasurer, he made his peace the next day." 



520 UNDER THE COMPANY 

The king, in reply to tlie petitions of each party, referred 
the case to his Privy Council, which met on April 27 and 
issued the following orders: 

" Their Lordships having this day by order from his 
Majesty heard at large the Lord Cavendish with others 
representing the body both of the Virginia and Sommer 
Islands Companies, and divers particular adventurers & 
others who had complayned to his Majesty of some griev- 
ances, and having considered the allegations and answers 
on both parts, did order according to his Majesty's plea- 
sure hi that behalf e that there shalbe a commission under 
the great seal of England directed unto certain persons of 
Knowledge and sinceritye, who shalbe thereby authorized 
to examine by oath or otherwise by all lawfuU meanes and 
ways to make enquiry into the true estate of the Plan- 
tations of Virginia and the Somers Islands & incidents 
thereunto belonginge from the very beginning of those 
Plantations unto the present tyme. As also, what moneyes 
have hereto-fore been Collected for those Plantations, by 
whome and how they were procured — As also in what 
manner those moneyes have been spent. And after the 
expense of so great sums of money what the Estate and 
Conditions are of those plantations now at this present ; to 
enquire and search into all abuses and grievances concern- 
ing the former particulars and of all wrongs and injuryes 
done to any adventurers or planters and the grounds and 
causes thereof, and to propound after what sort the same 
may be better managed. Also to enquire who they be that 
prey upon the inhabitants and planters, selling and barter- 
ing commodities or victualls at excessive & unjust rates : 
whether the magazine or private men and at what price 
everie commoditie is sould. 

"And to the end there may be no discouragement 
amongst those who are now in Virginia and the Somers 
Islands by reason of Advertizement that may proceed from 
any factions humours or persons. Their Lordships did 
likewise further order that no particuler letters shallbe sent 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NO VEMBEK, 1623 521 

by any man for or about any other matter or intelligence 
than his private business. That such letters as are written 
already to any other effect shalbe taken back. And if any 
be sent notwithstanding this order, the sending thereof 
shalbe taken as a contempt and infringing of then' order. 
And they who shall send the same shall stand lyable to 
such punishment as they shalbe found to deserve. 

" Lastly their Lordships did order that the said Com- 
panies shall write Generall Letters to those who are now in 
Virofinia & Somers Islands to exhorte and admonish them 
to live togeather in Concord & unitie, and to employ their 
endeavours jointly for the publique good of the Planta- 
tions. To which purpose it was also ordered that two let- 
ters of like tenor [one to each colony] should be written 
from the Board." 

Lord Cavendish caused a Virginia court to be held that 
evening, " to consider of the letters to be written to both 
the plantations," and the other orders and instructions of 
the Privy Council. 

April 28, Middlesex wrote to Conway that " the Privy 
Council had agreed on Sir William Jones, Sir Nicolas 
Fortescue, Sir Henry Bourchier, Sir Henry Spiller, Sir 
Francis Gofton, Sir Richard Sutton and Sir William Pitt, 
or any four of them, as Commissioners ; a commission was 
to be presently awarded to them, an order therefor having 
already been given to Mr. Attorney General, and as soon 
as it was properly returned the case would be looked into 
so that they may have some true grounds to work upon,^^ 
etc. That is, in plain English, the royal commissioners 
were appointed for the purpose of finding some reason for 
justifying the king in doing what he had made up his mind 
(prior to March, 1622) to do. 

At the Virginia court, on the 28th, the general letter to 
the Council of State in Virginia was read and approved, 
and the committee was instructed to submit it to the Privy 
Council on the next afternoon, who returned it for revision 
in some particulars. 



522 UNDER THE COMPANY 

On the 29th, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : " There is 
a great faction fallen out in the Virginia Company. The 
heads on the one side are, the Earl of Southampton, the 
Lord Cavendish, Sir Edward Sackville, Sir John Ogle, Sir 
Edwin Sandys, with divers others of meaner quality. On 
the other side are, the Earl of Warwick, Sir Thomas Smith, 
Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Henry Mildmay, Alderman John- 
son, and many more." The number of the opponent party 
was stated by the administration party to be only 26. It 
is true that only from 20 to 26 of this party attended the 
courts at all regularly; but these seem to have done so 
more as attorneys and reporters than with the object of 
controlling actions. Owing to the non-action of so many 
members of the company, a correct estimate as to the 
numerical strength of the parties cannot be formed; but 
between 80 and 100 were certainly in active opposition to 
the administration party, and about 700 others were in the 
opposition, in so far as that they had ceased to attend the 
courts. It seems certain that the opposition might have 
defeated the administration in the coming elections had 
they wished to do so ; but many of the company who were 
not personally interested, or especially interested, in estab- 
lishing the new form of government in America, now 
desired to shift the responsibility of the enterprise to 
broader shoulders. The company had carried on the work 
as long as it well could, or afford to, as matters then stood, 
and most of the members now wished the king, while 
protecting their property rights acquired under the com- 
pany, to take the colony under the crown, as, it was stated, 
the ultimate intention and object had been from the be- 
ginning. The company was not intended to control the 
fifth kingdom longer than diplomacy made advisable. It 
had now fulfilled its mission, and in doing this, under the 
divine providence, had laid the foundation for a republic 
both in North and South Virginia. Then was not the 
time to build thereon, but when that time did come the 
foundation then laid was ready for the building. 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NO VEMBER, 1623 523 

At the Virginia court, May 3, Johnson's Petition (II.) 
and Butler's Unmasking (HI.) were read to the court, and 
steps were taken for preparing full replies to both. On the 
same day Secretary Conway wrote to the lord treasurer to 
hasten the commission for Virginia, and the next day the 
lord treasurer rephed that the draft of the Virginia com- 
mission was ready to be submitted to the Council. 

The company was now holding courts almost daily, tak- 
ing depositions, delivering discourses, etc. At the court 
of May 10, Mr. Scott passed three shares to " Mr. Thomas 
Culpepper of ye Middle Temple London Esq." Nicholas 
Ferrar, the deputy, read several of the aforesaid discourses, 
etc., out to the assembly ; and the opposition at once peti- 
tioned the Privy Council " to make inquiry touching certain 
matters of unjust accusation and contention read by Nicholas 
Ferrar " at this meeting. They submitted that " such mat- 
ters should have been laid before the commissioners and 
not the public." 

The general letter to the governor and Council in Vir- 
ginia from the Privy Council in England was ready on 
May 10, and the one from the treasurer and company was 
ready two days thereafter. Both were sent to Virginia by 
the Bonny Bess. 

The Virginia court of April 22 had appointed " Sir 
Edwin Sandys, Sir Edward Harwood, Mr. John Smyth (of 
Nibley), Mr. White, Mr. Berblock, Mr. Withers, Mr. Cope- 
land, and Two Deputies [John and Nicholas Ferrar]," a 
committee for perfecting the various writings which they 
intended to submit in their case to the king and Privy 
Council. And this committee had been supervising these 
things all along. On May 17, a very full court being 
assembled, I., II., III., IV., and V. were again read. Then 
the company's answer to Alderman Johnson's Petition (II.) 
was read, viz. (VI.) " An Answer to a Petition delivered to 
his Majesty by Alderman Johnson in the name of sundry 
adventurers and planters of Virginia and Somer Islands 
Plantations." This was directed especially at Sir Thomas 
Smvthe and Alderman Johnson. 



524 UNDER THE COMPANY 

VII. Then " The answers of divers planters that have 
long lived in Virginia, as also of sundry mariners and other 
persons that have often been at Virginia, unto a paper enti- 
tled [HI.] : ' The unmasked face of our Colony in Virginia 
as it was in the Winter of the Year 1622.' " Butler's paper 
contained more truth than it was then advisable to make 
public ; but the paper was not fair, and neither were the 
answers thereto. They attempted to make the faults of 
the paper greater than they were. 

VIII. Then " the attestation of Severn and Lowe, how 
they were drawn by Captain Butler to subscribe to his 
information." 

IX. Then the company's "A True answer to a writing 
of Information presented to his Majesty by Capt Nathaniel 
Butler " (III.). 

X. Then " A Declaration made by the Council for 
Virginia and principal assistants for the Somer Islands of 
their judgments touching one original great cause of the 
dissentions in the Companies and present oppositions." 
This was a reopening of the old Warwick- Argall "Treas- 
urer " controversy. 

XI. The last paper was " A second petition to the 
King^s most excellent Majesty, which Sir Edward Sack- 
ville was earnestly desired by the Court to present to his 
Majesty for hastening the commission," etc. 

These papers seem to have been written diplomatically 
more to draw attention to the earHer administration by an 
attack on it, than to give the actual present state of Vir- 
ginia, which was really the question at that time. 

At this court Sir John Culpepper passed a share to Mr. 
Freake of the Middle Temple, gent. 

May 18, Conway wrote to Sir Edward SackviUe concern- 
ing the petition (XI.), which he was appointed to deliver 
to " his Majestic on the behalf of the Virginia Companie," 
acquainting him with his Majesty's pleasure therein, and 
sending it to him by his page. On the same day Conway 
wrote to Mr. Secretary Calvert to " hasten the passing 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 525 

under the great Scales of the Commission concerninge the 
Virginia Company and see that the Commissioners do like- 
wise expedite the business ; " endorsed, " sent by Mr. Clies- 
terman at midnight." The commission was sealed and 
signed the next day (May 19). giving the commissioners 
full power to carry out the orders of the king and Privy 
Council to send for persons, papers, etc., to consider the 
evidences fully, " whereby the Truth in the Premises may 
the more playnely appeare." 

Several days after the Virginia court of May 17, "the 
Earl of Warwick and the principal persons Adventurers in 
the Plantations of Virginia and the Summer Islands made 
complaint to the Privy Council that whereas both they and 
the Virginia Company were directed to attend the Commis- 
sioners (authorized under ye great Seal of England for the 
handling of matters importing those Plantations, the par- 
ticulars whereof appear at large in the Commission itself) 
to the end they should inform the said Commissioners of 
such abuses and grievances either in point of government, 
misimployment of money or ye like, whereof either side 
mought have any just cause of complaint. With express 
charge and command nevertheless from the Privy Council 
that in the preparing of the information each party should 
go directly to the matter and avoid all bitterness and 
sharpness of stile, or other impertinent provocation tend- 
ing; rather to revive and kindle former heats and distrac- 
tions, between the said two parties, then anyway conducting 
[conducing?] to the work and service intended." "That 
notwithstanding their Lordships commands so given, those 
of the Virginia Company have contrived & sett down in 
writing, and caused pubhquely to be read a long and im- 
pertinent Declaration [X.] consisting for the most part of 
bitter and unnecessary invectives and aspertions upon ye 
person of the Earl of Warwick^ and others whom they 
stiled his Instruments and Agents." The Privy Council 

1 His suit against Captain Edward Brewster was before the High Court 
of Admiralty about this time. 



526 UNDER THE COMPANY 

(present : the lord archbishop of Canterbury (Abbott), 
Lord Keeper Williams, Lord Treasurer Cranfield, Lord 
President Montague, Lord Steward Stuart, the Marquis of 
Hamilton, Lord Chamberlain Herbert, Lord Carew, Lord 
Brooke, Mr. Treasurer Edmonds, Mr. Comptroller Suckling, 
Mr. Secretary Calvert, Mr. Chancellor Weston, and Master 
of the Rolls Csesar), considering this complaint on May 23, 
" caused forthwith the said writing itself together with such 
persons as were nominated to have a chief hand in the pen- 
ning thereof to be brought before the Board : and having 
at large perused the said writing containing five or six 
sheets of paper, & Hkewise taken examination of the per- 
sons themselves, when called before them, and finding the 
said writing to be for the most part such as was complained 
of, and that the persons who were chief actors in the indit- 
ing and penning thereof were the Lord Cavendish, Sir 
Edwin Sandys, Nicholas Farrer, and John Farrer — have 
thought fit and accordingly ordered that they four should 
be forthwith restrained of their liberty and consigned to 
their severall lodgings or Houses (as persons guilty of a 
contempt against the direction and commands of this 
Table), where they are to remain untill his Majesty or this 
Board shall give further order." 

The Easter court, the time for the annual elections, fell 
this year on May 24. The king had previously recom- 
mended to the company the following list from which they 
were to elect their treasurer and deputy : " Sir John Mer- 
rick, Mr Martin Bond, Mr Nicholas Leate, Alderman Ham- 
mersley, Mr. Humfry Slany, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Robert Smyth, 
Mr. Ditchfield, Mr. Wolstenholme, Mr Edwards, Mr. Dike, 
and Mr Edward Bennett ; " but after consultation with his 
Privy Council on the 23d, " it was thought best that the 
election of new of&cers should be absolutely put off and 
none chosen at all until the next court." Early on the next 
morning (24:th) Mr. Secretary Calvert wrote to the aforesaid 
effect to the Earl of Southampton, and when the court met 
it was agreed that the old officers should continue in their 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NO VEMBER, 1623 527 

places until the next quarter court. The business accounts 
of Sir Edwin Sandys and of the Ferrars were justified by this 
court and they were given their quietus est. Thomas, Lord 
Bruce (created Earl of Elgin in 1633) was admitted into 
the company and added to the Council for the company, 
as were also Sir Humphrey May (chancellor of the duchy), 
Mr. White, and Mr. Tomlyns. Peter Humble passed ten 
shares to John Burgh, and Mr. Bland one to Mr. Robert 
Edwards. The court appointed Sir Edward Sackville, Sir 
Robert Kilhgrew, and Sir John Danvers to go before the 
commissioners on the next day and to present for their 
consideration several of the papers which had been read to 
the court of May 17. Certain books of the company had 
been sent to the Privy Council for their inspection on May 
3, and this court (May 24) states that " the Lords of his 
Majesty's Privy Council had sequestered all the court-books 
out of the Company's hands." 

May 25, the commissioners require the company " to 
bring before us to the guest-house, next adjoining to St 
Andrew's church in Holborn, upon Saturday next [27th], 
all and singular such letters-patents, proclamations, commis- 
sions, warrants, records, orders, books, accompts, entries 
and all other notes and writings remaining in your or any 
of your custody concerning the plantations in Virginia or 
the Somer Islands, or concerning the several Companies." 
The order is " to Edward CoUingwood, Secretary to the Com- 
pany of Virginia and to the clerks and officers," etc. Upon 
receiving this order the Virginia court of May 27 " ap- 
pointed the committee hereafter named or any three of 
them, with the Secretary, to attend the commissioners from 
time to time with the letters-patents, & books of accompts, 
which were by them required to be brought ; and at every 
rising of the commissioners to bring back the original let- 
ters-patents, leaving there with them the copies of the said 
letters-patents, which they hoped would content the com- 
missioners. As for the accompts, the commissioners were 
to be desired in the Company's name that they would respite 



528 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the delivery until the accomptant might take copies of them, 
when together with the other things, they should be deliv- 
ered unto them. 

" The committees are these : Sir Robert Killegrew, Sir 
John Danvers, Mr Herbert, Mr. Tomlyns, Mr. White, Mr. 
Withers, Mr Bland, Mr. Barber, and Mr. Berblock." This 
committee was also to request the commissioners for the 
speedy examination of their " Declaration " (X.), as it was 
very important for the company to have the services of 
John and Nicholas Ferrar at this juncture, as they were 
most versed in the business of these latter years. They 
were released prior to June 3. 

Thanks to the foresight of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, an im- 
portant portion of the evidence for the administration party 
has been preserved as it was, after thorough revision by 
their committees, perfected and presented to the commis- 
sion. Much of this has been published and incorporated 
into our histories. On the other hand, the documents that 
I have from the other party are, for the most part, in- 
complete drafts, which had been roughly drawn by Sir 
Nathaniel Rich, Sir Thomas Wroth, Alderman Robert 
Johnson, and others, and submitted to the committees of 
their party, who advised thereon, and then made notes for 
corrections, alterations, etc. ; but the revised papers, as com- 
pleted and presented to the royal commissioners, have gone 
the way of the other original records. Therefore, in con- 
sidering the case between the two parties in the company it 
must be borne in mind that the evidences are not yet on an 
equal footing ; but as very little of the evidence for this 
party has been published, and as the history of the first 
administration has been based largely on the evidence fur- 
nished by their opponents, it would be an act of justice to 
publish these papers, imperfect as they generally are, and 
this will be done some day. 

The party in opposition sent to the commission replies to 
each one of the administration party papers, I., IV.-XI. I 
should like to give them in full, but they are too long, and 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 529 

I have made use of much of the material contained in them 
from time to time in this book. They are generally busi- 
nesslike in views presented (and their chief opposition was 
to the business management of the Sandys-Ferrar party), 
and correct in statements made, but they are party papers, 
hke those to which they were replies, and like the evidence 
on which their party has been judged. But the history of 
the administration of no party can be based solely on evi- 
dence furnished by an opponent party, however agreeable 
it might be to that party to have it so ; it is necessary, in 
order to arrive at the facts, to consider the evidence for all 
parties engaged in the enterprise. 

The following important document was presented to the 
commissioners by Sir Nathaniel Rich (one of the attorneys 
for the opposition) about the 1st of June : — 

" This day being friday the 16 of May [0. S.} 1623 
between the hours of 11 and 12 a clock in the forenoone 
Captaine Bargrave came to me to shew me a paper which 
he had drawne concerning the present government of Vir- 
ginia, which I onlie read and delivered to him againe and 
he and myself being then all alone in the great Chamber of 
my Lord of Warwick's house he tould me that he was 
af rayd to discover somethinge which he knew of Sir Edwin 
Sandys his proceeding in those businesses, both because he 
was so upheld privately in his courses as also that he had 
the strength of the Court ^ to countenance him in all things, 
and had so carryed the business that he would be sure to hide 
all his owne ill actions under the name of the Companye : 
Besyde he tould me that by his long acquaintance with him 
& his wayes he was induced verilie to beleave that there 
was not any man m the world that carried a more mali- 
tious heart to the Government of a Monarchie than Sir 
Edwin Sandys did. For Capt. Bargrave had heard him say 
That if our God from heaven did constitute and direct 
a forme of Government it was that of Geneva. And he 
hath oft tymes reprehended Capt. Bargrave that in some 

^ That is, the Virginia court. 



530 UNDER THE COMPANY 

written tractates of his, and in his discourses he seames to 
dislike the Constitution and frame of the present Govern- 
ment of Virginia as that which inclined unto, if not directly 
being a j^opular Government. He telling Capt. Bargrave 
that his intent was to erect a free state in Virginia, and 
other words to that purpose. And to that intent (he, Capt. 
Bargrave, affirmed to me) Sir Edwin Sandys moved my Lord 
of Canterburye to give leave to the Brownists and Separat- 
ists of England to goe thither. For which my Lord grace 
of Canterburye sayed to Bargrave that he should never 
hke well of Sir E. Sandys, those Brownists by their doc- 
trine clayming a liberty & disagreeing to the government of 
monarchies.^ And the said Capt. Bargrave likewise affirms 
that if the Charter which by Sir Ed. Sandys his meanes 
was sent into Virginia (in which is a clause (as he sayes) 
that they shall have no Government putt upon them hut 
by their owne consents), and his other proceedings in those 
businesses of the Plantations (especially such as conceriie 
government) were looked into it would be found that he 
aymed at nothing more than to make a free popular 
state there, and himselfe and his assured freinds to be the 
leaders of them. With much to this effect, declaring in 
my apprehension a miraculous ill affection in Sir Edwin 
Sandys to their happier frame of Monarchic." 

[Endorsed] " A note which I partly [presently ?] tooke 
of Capt. Bargrave's discourse to me concerning Sir E. 
Sandys, 16 [26 N. S.] of May 1623." 

John Ferrar says, in his memoir of his brother Nicho- 
las, that " the [Privy] Council finding that the Company 
were still resolved not to part with their patent, or with the 
liberty which they thereby had to govern their own affairs, 
now took a more severe, and not less unjust course. They 
confined Lord Southampton to his house, that he might 
not come to the Virginia Courts, of which he was the legal 

^ See p. 265. Sandys wished to public authority of the archbishop, 
have the Pilgrims tolerated by the and this was refused. 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 531 

Governor. But this only made the company more resolute 
in their own just defence. They then ordered Sir Edwyn 
Sandys into a similar confinement. But this step in no 
degree abated the resolution of the Company. Then the 
Lords, under the influence of Gondomar, strongly pressed 
the Company to give up their patent. The Marquis of 
Hamilton and the Earl of Pembroke informed Lord South- 
ampton and Sir Edwyn Sandys of these proceedings, say- 
ing. That Nicholas Ferrar, though now left as it were alone, 
was too hard for all his opposers. But continued they, 
your enemies will prevail at last ; for let the Company do 
what they can, in open defiance of Honour, and Justice, it 
is absolutely determined at all events to take away your 
patent." John Ferrar's account is very valuable if taken 
with a due grain of allowance. It is naturally partial to 
his brother Nicholas, and not perfectly fair to his oppo- 
nents. Unfortunately, it seldom gives dates, and having 
been written some years after, evidently largely from mem- 
ory, it is sometimes badly mixed as to dates and the relative 
positions of events. However, it is not always evident 
whether Peckard is giving Ferrar's words or his own, and 
it may be that Peckard is more to blame than Ferrar for 
the mixed state of portions of the book.^ 

The Privy Council did not call for the surrender of the 
charter until the fall of 1623. Mr. Nicholas Ferrar was 
the acting head of the Virginia Company from June, 1623, 
to the spring of 1624. Although Sandys and Southamp- 
ton were confined to their houses, or not permitted to 
come to the Virginia courts, Ferrar had access to them. 
And they gave him all the assistance in their power, as did 
also the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Pembroke, the 
Earl of Dorset, the Earl of Devon, Lord Paget, Lord Caven- 
dish, Sir Humphrey May, Sir Robert Killigrew (probably 
the Earl of Carlisle), and many others. " But all to no pur- 
pose," says John Ferrar ; " for the King, notwithstanding 

^ Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. By P. Peckard, D. D. Cam- 
bridge, 1790. 



532 UNDER THE COMPANY 

his royal word and honor pledged to the contrary, notwith- 
standing the grant under the Great Seal of England, not- 
withstanding all that should bind the conscience, and direct 
the conduct of an honest man, was now determined with 
all his force to make the last assault, and give the death 
blow to this, as yet, prosperous and thriving Company." 

On June 1, 1623, the Privy Council issued the following 
order : " Their Lordships being this day informed that not- 
withstanding their former commands and directions that 
all Charters, Books, (and by name the blurred Book or 
Books) Letters, Petitions, Lists of names and Provisions, 
Invoyces of Goods, and all other writing whatsoever, and 
Transcripts of them, belonging to them, or anywise import- 
ing the Plantation of Virginia and the Summer Islands, 
should be forthwith brought in to the Clerk of the Council 
to the end they might be delivered to the Commissioners 
for the said Plantations — That nevertheless divers of them ^ 
and by name the Blurred Book or Books, are still con- 
cealed and kept back ; which neglect towards the Com- 
mands of this Board, their Lordships finding just cause to 
reprove, have thought fit hereby streightly to will & require 
both the said Companies and in particular the officers of 
the same, that they cause all the said charters, Books <S:c 
above mentioned to be forthwith delivered in to the said 
Commissioners, and that the Clerk of ye Council do like- 
wise deliver in unto them, such of the said Books &c 
as are in their custody — Of all which each party may 
have free use in such sort as to ye Commissioners shall 
seem good. And that all Boxes & Packages of Letters 
which hereafter shall be brought over from Virginia or 
ye Summer Islands during this Commission shall be first 
and immediately delivered to ye Commissioners by them to 
be broken open, perused or otherwise disposed [of] as they 
shall find cause." ^ 

^ It may be that Nicholas Ferrar ^ In a copy of the Company Re- 
had already commenced the copying cords, in the Library of Congress at 
of these records. Washington, it is stated that some of 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 533 

At the Virginia court of June 3, the king's letter of 
May 28 to the company was read, which the court con- 
strued as being prohibitory to the continuance of the meet- 
ings of the company ; and it was agreed that they would 
keep no more courts until they understood his Majesty's 
gracious pleasure concerning two points therein contained. 
Lord Paget, Sir Edward Sackville, and Mr. John Ferrar 
were appointed to draw up a petition to the king on these 
points, which Mr. Chancellor of the Duchy (Sir H. May), 
Mr. White, Mr. George Scott, Mr. Zouch, and Mr. Bennett 
delivered to the king the next day. It was a long argu- 
ment rather than a petition. It was submitted by the king 
to Mr. Alderman Johnson and Sir Nathaniel Rich. John- 
son said that " they pretended a nice and htterall interpre- 
tation of his Majesty's letter ; that it did not need alteration 
but only explanation." Rich drafted a reply, which was 
submitted to the king, and embodied in the second royal 
letter of June 14, which was read to the Virginia court 
of June 19, and was satisfactory. The court hereupon, to 
express their thankfulness to his Majesty for so gracious 
an answer, sent a letter to the king to that purport. 

On June 19, Mr. Burgh passed one share to Mr. Anthony 
Withers; Henry, Lord De la Warr, passed three shares to 
Colonel John Ogle, and Mr. Downes two shares to Mr. 
Richard Winckfield (or Wingfield). As the company was 
now anxious to have " friends at court," this was probably 
Richard Wingfield, esquire of the body to James I., or his 
nephew of the same name, son of Sir Robert of Upton. 

The God's Gift (Gift of God?) left England about this 
time, carrying above 46 hogsheads of peas, meal, and oat- 
meal, etc. She went via the Bermudas, and carried letters 
for that colony as well as for Virginia. Soon after this 
ship sailed, the Abigail arrived in England from Virginia 
(about June 27) with a large package of over fifty letters 
from the ofiicials and others, which the royal commissioners 

the original documents, letters-patent, tions, and remained there. Where 
etc., were transmitted to the planta- are they now ? 



534 UNDER THE COMPANY 

took in hand, " broke open and perused." They made 
extracts from many of them, which they submitted to the 
Virginia court on July 11 following. These letters are 
said " to have made a map of the Colony's misery." 

On July 3, it was proposed to the lord treasurer " that 
some Commissioners should be sent into Virginia, and that 
the present managers of the affairs of the Plantation should 
be dismissed from all further meddling with it, should 
there be a certificate from these Commissioners that lives 
and money had been negligently cast away there ; and that 
the old adventurers should be invited to subscribe anew, 
and that none should have a voice in the Court save those 
who would underwrite £20 per annum for four years." 

At the Trinity quarter court on July 5, 1623, Mr. Dep- 
uty Ferrar acquainted the court that he " had received a 
letter from his Majesty, sent unto him by a servant of Mr. 
Secretary Calvert's, with which letter having acquainted 
the Council for Virginia, they thought fit it should be first 
read before they proceeded to any other business ; " where- 
upon the letter was opened and read, a copy of which is 
here given : — 

" James R. : — 

" Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well : for- 
asmuch as we have appointed a commission to examine the 
present state of the Virginia plantation, with sundry other 
things and matters appertaining thereunto, and that we 
expect within these few days to have some accompt made 
us of their labours in that service, understanding that to- 
morrow, . . . you intend to hold a court for the said Com- 
pany, our will and pleasure is that you forbear the election 
of any officers until to-morrow fortnight at the soonest, 
but to let those that be already remain as they are in the 
meantime. July 4*^^ 1623." 

It was directed "To our right trusty and well beloved — 
The Treasurer, Council and Company of Virginia." After 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NO VEMBER, 1623 535 

the letter was read, the court, being of opinion that their 
officers could only be chosen in quarter courts, it was re- 
solved, "in obedience to his Majesty's letter to forbear their 
election, and to continue all their officers till the next quar- 
ter court," which would not be until November 29 follow- 
ing. The court then granted to the Earl of Southampton 
his quietus est for his " three years' accompts," and to Mr. 
Deputy Ferrar for the past year's account. Mr. Scott, Mr. 
Bland, Mr. Wheatley, and Mr. Berblock were added to his 
Majesty's Council for the Virginia Company. And the 
following patents were drawn up and approved : " To Mr. 
John Zouch ; Mr. Edmund and John Prinn ; Mr. Clement 
Dilke, and Mr. John Proctor, each of them undertaking to 
transport 100 persons with sufficient necessaries and pro- 
visions for cultivating theii- own land." 

Conway, in a letter to Calvert, written on Jidy 5, ex- 
presses the hope that he has dispatched the affairs given 
him in charge, and that the Virginia business will be 
attended to. The commission had been examining the 
letters, etc., sent from Virginia in February, March, and 
April by sundry ships, as well as those persons who re- 
turned in the ships. They made extracts from these letters 
and evidences, which they sent to the king and to the Privy 
Council. Conway wrote to Calvert, on July 10, that the 
king wished the Privy Council to sit daily on the Virginia 
business until it was concluded. Secretary Calvert wrote to 
Deputy Ferrar that he with some others of the Virginia 
Company must attend the Privy Council at Whitehall, on 
the 10th, which they did. " Their Lordships told them 
that they had been informed by the private letters that 
came by the last ships from Virginia that his Majesty's 
subjects there were in a very great want and like to perish 
there, an abstract of which letters the Commissioners had 
presented unto them, which they caused to be read at the 
board ; and thereupon commanded Deputy Farrar to call a 
Virginia Court the next day, and acquaint it with the report 
of the said letters by reading the abstracts unto them — 



636 UNDER THE COMPANY 

whereby, having informed themselves of the miserable 
estate of the Colony, they may consider how to send pre- 
sent supplies unto them, and to return an answer to the 
Privy Council." The Virginia court was called, and after 
the abstracts had been read, and after a serious consultation 
how to raise a supply, the following was written : — 

" The humble aunswere of the Virginia Companie being 
assembled in a general Court held the 1st [11th, N. S.] 
of July 1623. To The Right honorable the Lords of 
his Ma*^^^ most Honorable Privy Councill. 

" The Company having taken your Lordships commands 
into consideration, of speedie sending of supplies of victuall 
and provisions to Virginia, doe find that not only divers 
Hundreds wilbe supplied by their perticuler Adventurers, 
but also sundrie perticuler persons from their friends. 

" And for a generall supplie they have had propositions 
of underwriting a large Magazine, but many difficulties 
arising herein they were not able to come to any conclusion 
this present day, the Court beinge verie thynn through the 
shortness of the warning and doe therefore humblie desire 
respite untill Friday [14th] next to consider and advise 
thereof that a large and full court may be assembled and 
the rest of the Adventurers acquainted therewith. 

" But whereas there are divers persons indebted unto 
the Company upon subscriptions, which moneyes are long 
due and amount to a verie great sum, if it might please 
your Lordships that some speedie course might be taken to 
cause those that are so indebted to pay in their said sums 
there would be a verie valuable sum raised equally for the 
present as future occasions, which they humblie submit to 
your Lordships most honorable consideration." 

On the same day Calvert wrote to Conway : " The Lords 
wonder at His Majesty's reproofs for being absent from 
Council, having attended diligently on the Virginia busi- 
ness." The next day (July 12) Lord President Mandeville 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 537 

wrote to Conway : " That his Majesty may see we have not 
been idle every day this week the Lords have sat in Coun- 
cill and a very fine Table. The Virginia Company on 
Monday last were charged to call their company to-gether 
to acquaint them with the Letters we showed them that 
make a Map of the Colony's misery and on Tuesday to 
bring us a resolute answer what money they had in stock 
and what present course they would take for the releeving 
of the colony there. For releeved they must be and that 
presently. And for this time by the aid of the Company 
here. Tuesday in the afternoon they returned [their 
answer and were given until the 14th for their final 
answer]. I have here sent a copy of a letter from Mr 
George Sandys to John Farrar of April 8 [18, N. S.] 1623 
from Virginia. Some of the Company alledging to us as 
that his letters to the Company had reported to them no 
such miseries & necessities of the Colony. But his Majesty 
shall see how honestly and discreetly he writes and corre- 
spondently to the other letters," etc. 

At the Virginia court on Friday, July 14, Mr. Deputy 
Ferrar said " that he had present their answer to the Privy 
Council on July 11*^ ; but their Lordships seemed not to 
be well satisfied, and required the company's present reso- 
lution, and willed them to consider and bring them a defi- 
nite answer this day." He then told the company what 
had been done in the premises, and presented two rolls. 

I, " Voluntary supplies of p)articular societies or Hun- 
dreds, and private adventurers to he sent to their own 
people in Virginia,'^ etc. : Richard Stephens, £300 ; Rich- 
ard Tatom, £30 ; John Hart, £50 ; William Fellgate, £50 ; 
John Cuff, £60 ; Robert Godson, £80 ; Morris Thompson 
and Company, £70 ; Edmond Hacket, £60 ; James Car- 
ter, £60 ; Roland Truelove and Company, £400 ; John 
Procter, £50 ; " I, John Smyth will supply my servants 
now in Virginia in Berkley Hundreth and such others as 
this next August I send over to encrease them to the sum 
of at least £100;" William Ewen, £100; Marmaduke 



538 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Raynor, £50; Robert Edwards and John Bland, <£100; 
" Mr. George Scot, Mr. Gabriel Barber, Mr. Copelande and 
Mr. Caswell promise and undertake to send supplies to 
Martin Hundreth the sume of .£100;" James Gibbons, 
£100 ; (illegible) £40 ; the total amount being £1800. 

II. " The second Roll to he sent by way of Joynt Stocke 
in Meale : " Richard, Earl of Dorset, £100 ; William, Lord 
Cavendish, £100 ; Sir Edward Sackville, £77 ; Sir Edwin 
Sandys, £40; Sir Robert Killigrew, £40; Richard Tom- 
lins, £20 ; John and Nicholas Ferrar, £100 ; Gabriel Bar- 
ber, £100 ; Anthony Wyther, £20 ; William Caswell, £20 ; 
Thomas Viner, £30; Richard Baynam, £20; Richard 
Widows, £20, and Richard Stephens, £30. Total, £717. 

Sir Edward Sackville then presented a third roll in open 
court, and requested that those who opposed the company 
would underwrite thereon something towards this general 
sifpply intended. Mr. Caswell was chosen for treasurer for 
the magazine to be sent to Virginia for relief of the com- 
pany's tenants. The court determined to draw up a short 
Declaration to be presented to the Privy Council, " to shew 
that the fault of this supposed want in the Colony is not 
to be imputed to the present government of the Company 
here in England." 

In the afternoon Lord Cavendish, with the deputy and 
many others of the company, presented the two rolls to the 
Privy Council at Whitehall. Present: lord archbishop of 
Canterbury, lord treasurer, lord president, lord privy seal, 
lord steward. Lord Marquis of Hamilton, earl marshal, lord 
chamberlain. Earl of Carlisle, Lord Viscount Grandison, 
Lord Brook, Lord Chichester, Mr. Treasurer Edmonds, Mr. 
Comptroller Suckling, Mr Secretary Calvert, Mr. Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, and the master of the rolls. After 
reading the rolls and hearing the statements of Caven- 
dish and Ferrar, " Their Lordships finding it necessary 
for the supply of so general a want and the preventing 
of so imminent a danger, that there should be a common 
and general contribution made by all those who are any 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 539 

way interested in that business, Ordered that the names of 
the whole Company, as well of those who have shares as of 
those who have had ; and the several shares and Adven- 
tures shall be certified to the Board on Monday [17th] next 
in the afternoon ; and that every man shall contribute to 
the present Relief proportionally according to their shares, 
not restraining any man's farther liberality to give what 
more he pleaseth. 

" And to the end that the desire of private gain may not 
cross His Majesties Royall Intention and the Honorable 
care taken by the Board for ye E-ehef of His Majesties sub- 
jects there ; their Lordships did expressly order & command 
that when the meal and other provision of victuals are 
brought thither they shall be sold at reasonable prices." 

The lord president, Mandeville (Montague), of the Privy 
Council wrote to Conway : " I did not think to have found 
the Company so forward in yealding to this, but it came 
quite willingly from them which makes me think they are 
willing to hold their government, that are so ready in 
they re contributions. They have also yealded to restore 
Mr. Wrote to be again of the Company and Council as he 
was. The points of misgovernment on both sides are [have 
been] formally presented before the Commissioners. This 
you may be pleased to let his Majesty know. . . . What we 
do on the 17*'' you shall hereafter hear." On which day the 
representatives of the company showed the Privy Council 
the difficulties in the way of carrying out their commands, 
and " upon further weighing of those reasons, then deUv- 
ered against this course, their Lordships in fine were pleased 
to leave it to the Company to order the same by a general 
consent," etc., and the Virginia court of July 19 took the 
matter in hand, opened several rolls for subscriptions, etc. 

The Privy Council had not only been considering the 
matter of supphes for Virginia, but also a plan for better- 
ing the government in Virginia, as well as the treatment of 
the request of the king contained in his letter of July 4 
by the Virginia court of July 5. Conway wrote to Middle- 



540 UNDER THE COMPANY 

sex on July 13, " tlianking him, in his majesty's name, for 
his efforts by strict examination to find whether the Vir- 
ginia Company were so bound by their laws, etc, as that 
they could not put off the election in form as was required 
by his Majesty's letter, or whether that putting off as they 
have done were not the pretext to colour a wilfuU breach 
of his Majesty's commandment. Further his Majesty's 
pleasure is that you give order to Mr. Attorney Generall 
by a judicious inspection into the foundation and limita- 
tions of the comission and their carriage and behaviour in 
it, to enquire whether in like extremitie that they use to 
his Majesty, their comission [charter] he not voyd.'' On 
the 15th, Conway wrote to Lord President Mandeville that 
his Majesty wished to know the mind of the Privy Coun- 
cil on this question, and the next day Mandeville replied : 
" Concerning the deferring their election to a Quarter 
Court, and not for a fortnight's time as his Majesty's letter 
directed. We have been dilhgent to find out, but perceive 
they have good colour to excuse contempt because their 
Letters Patents limites the choise of their principal ofiicers 
to be at a Quarter Court." 

Captain John Smith tells us in his history that he wrote 
"A brief e relation" to the " Commissioners for the refor- 
mation of Virginia," and that " out of these observations it 
pleased " them " to desire my answer to these seven Ques- 
tions," etc. The motive of the " Relation " and of the 
" Answers " was to glorify Smith ; to link his fame his- 
torically with the royal idea ; to show that he alone (not- 
withstanding the bad management of others) had brought 
the colony to " so good a forwardness " under the king's 
form of government ; that nothing but disaster had be- 
fallen the colony under the popular charters ; and that the 
king ought to resume the government of the colony.^ It 
is an epitome of Smith's history. I have found no other 
record of the incident. 

The commissioners having examined the records of the 

1 See Arber's edition of Smith's Works, pp. 610-620. 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 541 

company in England, as well as their clerk, their messenger, 
and the keeper of the house in which they held their meet- 
ings ; the letters, etc., from Virginia, and having received 
statements from both parties, issued several orders, certifi- 
cates, and reports prior to July 26. The abstracts, forms 
and copies of these which remain indicate that their decisions 
were more favorable to the Smytlie than to the Sandys party. 
In their report on the recent state of the colony they had 
been more influenced by the letters that came into their 
hands, which were brought home in the last ships from Vir- 
ginia, than by such evidences as Butler's Unmasking, etc. ; 
as to which, however, these letters were rather confirmatory. 
Their certificate to the king was to the effect " that his sub- 
jects and people sent to inhabit there and to plant themselves 
in that country, were most of them by God's visitation, sick- 
nes of body, famine, and by massacres of them by the 
native savages of the land, dead and deceased, and those 
that were living; of them lived in miserable and lamentable 
necessity and want ; but the Country, for anything appered 
to the said commissioners to the contrary, they conceived 
to be fruitfuU and healthfuU, after our People had been 
sometime there ; and that if industrie were used it would 
produce many staple and good commodities, though as yet 
the sixteen years government now past had yielded few 
or none ; and that tJds neglect they conceived, must fall 
on the Governors and Company here, who had power to 
direct the Plantations there, and that the said Plantations 
are of great importance, and would, as they hoped, remain 
a lasting Monument of his Majesty's most gracious and 
happy government to all posterity, if the same were prose- 
cuted to those ends for which they were first undertaken. 

" And to that purpose, that if his Majesties first Grant 
of April 10 [20, N. S.] 1606, and his Majesty^s most 
prudent and princely Instructions [November, 1606] given 
in the beginning of the ptlaiitation for the direction of the 
affairs thereof, hy thirteen councellors in Virginia, and as 
many in England, all nominated hy his Majesty, had been 



542 UNDER THE COMPANY 

pursued, much better effects had been produced, than had 
been by the alteration thereof, into so popular a course, 
and amongst so many hands as then it was, which had 
caused much contention and confusion." Wodenoth says 
that " when a noble person asked Judge Jones of the com- 
mission, how he that was sworn to the laws, durst own 
proceedings in that nature, his answer was openly, — 
There was one law of the land, but another law of the 
King^s commissions J ^ In brief, their reports, as they 
were intended to do, increased the king's determination, 
" out of his great wisdom and depth of judgment, to 
resume the government, and to reduce that popular [repub- 
lican] form so as to make it agree with the monarchial 
form which was held in the rest of his Royall Monarchie." 
It was simply the justification asked for by the king. The 
" neglect " was not due to the form of government. The 
severe death - rate among newcomers continued after the 
government was resumed by the crown. 

The parties in the company had become very bitter. It 
was said that " they are grown so violent as Guelfs and 
Gebellines were not more animated one against the other." 
On July 26, at the Somers Islands court, while considering 
the reports of the commissioners, especially their order re- 
garding the Somers Islands of July 18, " Sir Edwin Sandys 
fell foul upon the Earl of Warwick. The Lord Cavendish 
seconded Sandys, and the Earl told the Lord, by his favour, 
he believed he lied." The challenge passed and was ac- 
cepted, the duel to take place on the Continent. July 
29, the Privy Council ordered all ports of the kingdom to 
be watched so that they might not cross the Channel, and 
Cavendish was arrested in Essex or Sussex ; but the Earl 
of Warwick in the disguise of a merchant got safely over, 
and was stayed at Ghent. Some days after this " the Earls 
of Essex and Warwick, feasted the Queen of Bohemia 
(Princess Elizabeth) in the English house at Delft, and the 
queen, the next day after, was delivered of her fifth son." 

Lord President Mandeville sent the king, on July 12, 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NO VEMBER, 1623 543 

such " Rules for Bettering the government in Virginia 
hereafter " as were thought advisable by the Privy Council, 
and at the same time some '' Notes offered by my Lord 
Chichester." July 15, Conway acknowledges their receipt; 
thanks Mandeville on behalf of the king lor his careful at- 
tention to the businesses at the Council table. " And how 
well his Majestic likes of the accounts you have given him. 
He will take a time to consider of the Rules set down by 
the Lords, and the Notes offered by my Lord of Chichester. 
And his Majesty would be well pleased to hear how the 
Companie for Virginia will be provided to furnish and put 
in execution those Rules for better government." The 
next day Mandeville replied, " We are not yet gone so far 
with them as to know how they will be able or willing to 
put in execution those Rules for better government that 
his Majesty shall think good to sett them." 

The Privy Council (twelve being present at the council- 
board) issued the following order on August 1 : " Whereas 
his Majesty being graciously pleased to take into his royall 
care the State of the Plantation of Virginia and of the 
government thereof referred the same to the deliberation of 
their Lordships, who having considered thereof did accord- 
ingly make Report unto His Ma*'®. 

" It is thought meet and ordered that the Lord Viscount 
Grandison, the Lord Carew and the Lord Chichester shall 
take the [Rules and] Notes hereto adjoined into particular 
consideration and out of them frame and set downe in writ- 
ing such orders as they conceive to be fittest for the regu- 
lating of all things in Virginia and for the ordering of the 
government — and to present them [to the Idng and his 
Privy Council] to be received and advised on." 

The Rules suggested for bettering the government in 
Virginia were : — 

" 1. Forts to be erected in places healthfuU and best for 
safety and defence. 

" 2. Guest houses to be built for harboring sick men and 
receiving strangers. 



544 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" 3. Townes & places for habitation to be seated near 
adjoyning, that they may be a strength to one another and 
the strongest and fertile and wholesomest places to be 
chosen. 

" 4. Ships, Pinaces & Barges to be maintained at the 
comon charge and to be employed for trade, defence, and 
discoveryes to the use of the publique. 

" 5. Provisions for necessary food to be cared for before 
matters of profit. 

" 6. The men to be devided into three parts, — 

" I. Some to be employed in publique workes, as build- 
ing of store-houses for victuals, Places of strength, and 
such like. 

" IT. Some in planting of corn, rootes & other fruit. 

" III. And some to be for strength & discoveryes — and 
all that are thus employed for Public works to be main- 
tained upon the public purse. 

" 7. None of the Natives to be taught to shoot in guns, 
or sufPered to have any pieces, nor to be allowed to dwell 
in places between us and the Sea Coasts. 

" 8. Men of experience in government and able men of 
service, to be sent thither, and some that best know that 
country to be used for Comanders therein. 

" 9. Churches & Schools to be erected in fit places of 
best access. 

" 10. The King's Majesty or his Privy Council to be 
made acquainted with all matters of great importance con- 
cerning that Plantation — And their directions to be fol- 
lowed. 

" By former Letters Patents, the Councell here for Vir- 
ginia were but few, and all were ajDpointed by the King : 
and to be increased, altered or changed at the King's plea- 
sure — and this Council nominated the Councillors of the 
Colonys and directed them as they thought good. Now 
these Councillors are made eligible by the Company out of 
the Adventurers. But their number should not be so great 
— and their Adventures should be greater that are chosen 
Councillors." 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 545 

I have not the Notes of Lord Chichester ; but the fol- 
lowing " Answer to ye propositions made by the Right 
Honorable ye Lord Chichester for ye better setting of the 
plantation in Virginia " will give an idea as to what they 
were : — 

" 1. The places antienthe best fortified were the Cities 
of Henrico and Charles which are now utterlie demolished 
by the Indians. And the fortifications about James Citie 
& Elizabeth Citie have been suffered by the Colony of late 
to grow to such decay that they are become of no strength 
or use. So that as to the first point the truth is That at 
this tyme there are no places fortified for defence or safetie 
for ye Access of shipping from the Sea and Boats upon the 
River. 

" 2. There are diverse small plantations aU seated upon 
the river sides accessible by Boats, and before most of them 
ships of above 200 tons may ride. But ye plantations are 
far asunder their houses stand scattered one from another, 
and are onUe made of wood, few or none of them being 
framed houses, etc. 

" 3. The Cities of Henrico & Charles stood upon high 
ground. The Cliffs being steep but of a clay mould, the 
air good and wholesome. And good quantitie of cleared 
grounds ; but aU the land generallie is overgrown with 
great timber trees, so that there is little land fit for present 
culture but what by industry is cleared of ye wood either 
by the English or the Indians. 

" 4. The fortifications antientlie used were by Trench 
and PaUizado and diverse blockhouses made of great tim- 
ber — built upon passages and for securing the Pallizados. 

" 5. The Lands where the towns are seated do not for 
ouofht is known afford stone for buildino" nor limestone for 
mortar. But there are good store of shells about Elizabeth 
Citie which will make very good hme and may by water be 
easilie transported to the several plantations. 

" 6. In most places and particularlie about Henrico & 
Charles citie the Sods are very good to fortifie with all — 



546 UNDER THE COMPANY 

especiallie if they be cut in the sedgie ground which is so 
full of roots that it binds the earth close and keeps it from 
falling in pieces. 

"7. It is very necessarie to raise new works. 

" 8. There is good store of earth fit to make brick almost 
in every place. And heretofore many Bricks hath been 
made in the countrie. 

" 9. This is a very good direction. And it would exceed- 
inglie both strengthen and beautifie the plantation if some 
convenient number of houses were built together of Brick 
and enclosed with a Brick wall that might deserve the name 
of a Towne : one of these at Henrico (which is the fittest 
place of all) and another at the place now called Charles 
Cittie. 

" The 10*'^, ll*'^ & 12*^ are so good and full directions as 
nothing can be added unto them, but only to be wished 
they were put in execution. 

" 13. It is most fit for his Majesty to appoint the cheif 
Governor, and if such Governor die then the Council there 
by pluralitie of voice to elect one to succeed him untill his 
Majesty's will be known either for confirming him that 
shalbe so chosen or for appointing some other. 

" 14. Those things may (if so it seem good to his Maj- 
esty) be left to the care of the Governor and Council here. 

" The number of Counsillors here which his Majesty 
designes to be but 13 in aU is feared wiU prove to be too 
few as experience shewed in the beginning of the planta- 
tion. There should be at least 25, to be continued and 
altered at the King's pleasure. It is most requisite (if so 
it seem good to his Majesty) that a Commissioti be sent 
forthwith to discover the true estate of the j^^ci^^tation in 
Virginia/' etc. 

On August 2, Lord Cavendish and others reported to the 
Privy Council that the first two subscription rolls had been 
compHed with, some of the provisions having been already 
sent by the Truelove and the Hopewell, the rest to be sent 
at once by the George, the Marmaduke, and the Jacob. 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 547 

On August 5, Conway wrote to Mandeville that the king 
desired to know what was being done in the Virginia busi- 
ness. Two days thereafter Mandeville replied : " That 
number which count themselves as the Company are re- 
quired to send there relief presently and to give up an 
account what be the provisions that they do send that it 
may appear to be a fit proportion for their necessaries. 
Also Mr Attorney General is required to look into all their 
former patents and what is returned [reported] hy the last 
Commission that his Majesty may upon just grounds de- 
termine ^annul] the former [charter] and pass another as 
his Majesty shall think fit. And for preparation to a new 
and better form of government I have delivered to my 
Lord Grandison, my Lord Carew and my Lord Chichester 
the three Lords appointed hy his 3Iajesty. All those 
Notes and Directions given by his Majesty — The Rules 
set down by my Lords of the [Privy] Council for strength- 
ening and governing of that place and the return that the 
commissioners lately made by which they may frame and 
advise suggestions fit to be presented to his Majesty." 

The lords appointed to make suggestions to the king, 
and to aid him in framing his proposed new royal gov- 
ernment for Virginia, had been instrumental in forming 
the royal government for Ireland, each of them having 
been interested in the plantation of Ulster. George, Lord 
Carew of Clopton, had served as president of Munster; 
Oliver St. John, Viscount Grandison, had served as lord 
deputy of Ireland ; and Arthur, Lord Chichester, had held 
the same office. 

On August 10, James I. received the following letter 
from his attorney-general and solicitor-general : — 

" May it please your most excellent Ma*'® Wee received 
a signification of your Majesties pleasure from the Lords 
of your most honorable Privy Council touching points 
which concerne the Virginia Company. 

" The one [was to see that the company complied with 



548 UNDER THE COMPANY 

their promises to the Council about sending supplies to Vir- 
ginia and to tell them they would fail to do so at their 
peril. The deputy had sent them a statement, showing that 
the Truelove had sailed with .£536 worth of provisions, and 
that the George would sail on the 14th with about ,£1500 
worth more.] 

" The other to take into our considerations the severall 
Letters Patents granted to that Company and the HejJorts 
concerni7ig the same lately made hy your Majesties com- 
missioners and thereupon certifie our opinions to your 
Majesty concerning the Resinning of that government. 
[They had diligently complied and conceived that] your 
Majestic, if you so please may justly resume that govern- 
ment and order and dispose of it in such other manner as 
in your wisdom you shall find best for the good of the 
plantation. 

" But for the manner, because the resuming of the priv- 
ileges in a legal course must he the work of time — and 
the distress of your Majesties subjects in that Colony (as 
seemeth by the Commissioners certificates) doth necessarily 
require more expedition. [They suggest that the king, as 
in the case of the Merchant Adventurers, should by his 
royal proclamation command the forbearance of the exe- 
cution of their letters patent, etc.] And that then if the 
Company shall not upon consideration of their own weak- 
ness voluntarily yield up their privileges there may he a 
legal proceeding against them for calling in the same [by 
law]. 

" But seeing it is your good pleasure not to avoyd the 
private interests of any of your subjects which have been 
Adventurers either in person or purse — We conceive and 
humbly offer it also to your Majesty's judgment that for 
avoyding the inconveniences which may ensue hy suspen- 
sion of the present government until a hetter he resolved 
on it will he fit that your Majestic first determine of that 
way which you shall think hest to establish for the gov- 
ernment of that Colony before you publish your intention 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 549 

hy proclamation or otherwise. And tlien at the same 
instant your subjects may have knowledge both of the ne- 
cessity of this alteration and of your grace to the adven- 
turers in settling and upholding their private interests. 

" All which we do most humbly submit to your own 
good pleasure and princely direction. 

" Your Majesties most humble servants — 

" Thomas Coventkye. 
" Ro. Heath." 

On August 16, Middlesex, in his letter to Conway refer- 
ring to the above, says that " the King will now see his 
power to resume the government of the Virginia Company 
and resettling it for the public good — but suggests, as 
most of the Privy Council are out of town, that the Vir- 
ginia Company should be allowed to go on quietly until 
after the Council meets about a month hence." Conway 
replied on the 18th, accepting the suggestion. 

The Virofinia court of Auo^ust 16 issued commissions to 
the following ships : the George, for transporting of pas- 
sengers only ; the Hopewell (John Hart, master), the Jacob, 
the Marmaduke, and the Great Hopewell (John Prynn, 
owner and master) for Virginia, and then for fishing 
voyages. The Hopewell was then ready to depart, and a 
general letter was prepared to be sent by her. These ships 
were to take the promised suppHes to Virginia. The George 
and Hopewell left about the same time. The Marmaduke 
left about the last of September (after the 26th), the Great 
Hopewell in October, and the Jacob in November. 

After the long vacation, on October 12, Conway wrote 
to Lord President Mandeville that " the King now wished 
him to proceed especially with the Virginia business and 
give him account thereof." The next day Mandeville re- 
plied : " I have made no delaye in the pursuite of those 
businesses the King commanded and as by your letter I 
perceive he expects accompt of. 

" This day I went to London and some of the Lords 



550 UNDER THE COMPANY 

met there, we having appointed the deputy of the Vir- 
ginia Company there to be. But he came not, so as I 
have despatched another messenger to fetch him ; for they 
say he is ten miles beyond Cambridge, and without this 
deputy, now in the absence of the Governor [the Earl of 
Southampton, who, as well as Sir Edwin Sandys, was then 
confined by order of the king], none of that Company will 
take anything upon them. Monday next [16th] in the 
morning the Lords have appointed to meet upon this busi- 
ness, and I have given warning that the Company is not to 
faile their attendance." 

Deputy Ferrar again failed to meet the Privy Council 
on October 16 ; but, with some others of the company, 
he was present at Whitehall on the 18th, "when their 
Lordships first demanded an accompt of him whether the 
supplies of meal and other things (according to the under- 
writing formerly presented by them) were sent to Virginia 
for relief of their great necessities and distress." He re- 
plied " that he conceived that all things promised by the 
Company to their Lordships had been performed with a 
very large advantage." 

" Afterward their Lordships propounded unto him some 
other very weighty propositions," which he requested might 
be drawn into an order of that board. This order is as 
follows : — 

" Whitehall, the 18'^ October, 1623 — Present : — Lord 
Keeper, Lord President, Lord Viscount Grcmdison, Lord 
Carew, Lord Chichester,^ Mr. Secretary Calvert, and the 
Master of the Rolls. — This day the Deputy and divers of 
the adventurers and Company of Virginia were called be- 
fore this Board, unto whom their Lordships declared that 
his Majesty having taken into his princely consideration 
the distressed estate of that Colony, occasioned as it seemeth 
by miscarriage of the government in that Company, which 

^ These three — Grandison, Carew, drafting the form of government now 
and Chichester — had been the special proposed to the company in lieu of 
committee who had aided the king in their popular form. 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 551 

cannot be well remedyed but by reducing the government 
into the hands of a fewer number of Governours near to 
those that were in the First Patent of that plantation, but 
especially to be provided that the interests of all adventurers 
and private persons whatsoever shall be preserved and con- 
tinued as they are, hath therefore resolved by a new Char- 
ter to appoint a Governor and twelve assistants, residents 
here in England, unto whom shall be committed the gov- 
ernment of that Colony and Company, \yhich Governor and 
his assistants his Majesty will be pleased to nominate and 
make choice of the first time ; and afterwards the election 
of the Governor to be in this manner, viz* : — The assist- 
ants to present the names of three to his Majesty of whom 
his Majesty will be pleased to nominate one to be Governor. 
And the assistants to be chosen by the greater part of 
the Governor's assistants for the time being ; the names of 
them to be chosen being first presented to his Majesty or 
to this Board, to be allowed or disallowed by his Majesty. 
And the Governor and six of the assistants to be thus 
changed once in two years. And his Majesty is pleased 
that there shall be resident in Virginia a Governor and 
twelve assistants, to be nominated by the Governor and 
assistants here resident, they presenting their names to his 
Majesty or this Board, that his Majesty may allow or dis- 
allow of the same. And as the Governor and assistants 
resident in Virginia shall have dependance and relation with 
the Governor and assistants resident here, so the Governor 
and assistants here shall have relation and dependance on 
this Board, whereby all matters of importance may he 
directed hy his Majesty [and his Privy Council] at this 
Board. And that in the same charter his Majesty pur- 
poseth to make the like grants as well of lands as of fran- 
chises and other benefits and thino^s as w^ere oranted in the 
former charters, with declaration that for the settling and 
establishing of private interests of all men this new Com- 
pany shall confirm or newly grant unto them the like in- 
terest as they enjoy by grant, order or allowance of the 
former Company. 



552 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" And therefore the said Deputy and other of the said 
Company were by their Lordships required to assemble a 
court on Wednesday [25th] next therein to resolve whether 
the Company will be content to submit and surrender their 
former Charters and accept of a new Charter, with the 
alterations above mentioned, and to return their Answer 
with all expedition to this Board, his Majesty being deter- 
mined, in default of such submission, to proceed for the 
recalling of the said former charters in such sort as shall 
be just." 

On the same day the Privy Council ordered Sir William 
Jones and the other commissioners to resume and continue 
the examination of the state of the plantations. 

The order of the Privy Council was read to the Virginia 
court on October 25 and fully debated. Only eight of 
those present were willing to surrender their charter as re- 
quested ; and the following answer was resolved on : " The 
Company for Virginia, being assembled according to your 
Lordships command, and having understood your Lordships 
order containing a proposition for the giving up of their 
Charters, conceive it in divers respects to be of such great 
weight and consequence as by special limitation of their 
Letters-patents is restrained only to the determination of a 
quarter-court. Wherefore as also in regard there was not 
assembled above one hundred and twenty persons, whereas, 
besides the new Adventurers and Planters in Virginia 
(which all are equally interessed), his Majesty's Letters- 
patents are granted to above one thousand persons of higher 
and inferior rank by their particular names, and, also, unto 
threescore Companies of the City of London and other cor- 
porate towns therein mentioned. The Company then assem- 
bled most humbly beseech your Lordships to give them 
respite until the next quarter-court the 29*^ of November, 
which is the soonest time the said letters-patents gives them 
power to make further answer therein, and against which 
more general summons shall be given." 

This answer was presented to the Privy Council on Octo- 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 553 

ber 27, by Nicholas Ferrar and others. Peckard (pp. 121- 
126) gives an abstract o£ Ferrar's appeal to the Council at 
this time, which was along the same lines as " the answer 
of the company." Being called to the upper end of the 
council-table he addressed himself with all humility to the 
lords, asking them whether either in law or equity a por- 
tion of the company could give up the patent without the 
previous consent of all the rest of the members, adven- 
turers and planters, " who were all included in the grant, 
and who all upon the encouragement, and promised protec- 
tion of the King, under the Great Seal of England, and the 
pledge of his royal word and honour, adventured their es- 
tates, and many of them even their lives in this the greatest 
and most honourable undertaking in which England had 
ever been engaged." He represented also the great good 
which, in numberless sources of wealth and strength, would 
by means of this corporation, and through the encourage- 
ment of their care, by the blessing of God, shortly accrue 
to this nation. He contended that the twentieth part of 
no company could legally deliver up the hberties and privi- 
leges, the rights, and the property of the other nineteen 
parts, and this " was what the Company now assembled, 
must refuse as a thing unjust, and not feasible for them 
to do." The answer of the company and the speech of 
Ferrar were received with favor by the Earl of Pembroke 
and the Marquis of Hamilton ; but the majority of the 
lords [Council] were ill pleased with them, considering 
their object to be " merely dilatory," and immediately is- 
sued a peremptory order to the company to meet on the 
30th in the afternoon and " to deliver a final answer." 

In Mandeville's report of this to Conway, he says that he 
had explained " that his Majestic intended to change only 
the frame of the government for the good of the people, 
but to have every private man's interests preserved and to 
be secured if defective. Their answer was so ill pleasing 
to my Lords that with reproof we have sent them back and 
peremptorily prefixed unto them to bring us a direct answer 



554 UNDER THE COMPANY 

on Monday next, when if they shall not offer the yealding 
up of that Patent then Mr Attorney-General is directed to 
take a course for revoking of it." 

On the 29th, Conway thanks Mandeville in behalf of the 
king for attending to the affairs of the Virginia Company. 

At the Virginia court of October 30 the question of sur- 
rendering their charters was again submitted and there was 
" a very hot debate " thereon between Thomas Keightley 
(one of the auditors of the company) and WilUam Canning. 
After voting, the following answer was drawn up in pre- 
sence of the court, and, being read, was generally approved 
and ordered to be delivered to the Privy Council in the 
name of the company : " The Company of Virginia being 
assembled the 30"" of October, according to your Lordships' 
command, and the Deputy having put to the question your 
Lordships' proposition in the direct words that your Lord- 
ships commanded, there were only nine hands for the deliv- 
ering up of the Charters, and all the rest (being about 
three-score more) were of a contrary opinion." 

The records give the names of sixty of those present and 
add, " with divers others to the number of 70." " Of the 
nyne that held up their hands to surrender the Patent these 
were observed — Sir Sam Argall, Sir Thomas Wroth [the 
only knights present ; no peers were present], Captaine Jo: 
Martin, Mr Canning, Mr. Woodall, Martin [Martian ?] the 
Armeanian, and Molasco the Polander — doubtf ull whither 
they [the last two] ought to have voice. The other two 
that held up their hands are not certainly known." They 
were Edward Palavicine and William Mease, as shown by 
the depositions in the case of Keightley vs. Canning, which 
also show that Captain John Smith was present, and (as 
his books also show) favored yielding the charter ; but he 
had no voice, as he was no longer a planter, and the £9 
paid in by him was short of a full share as an adventurer. 

The answer, with explanations, was at once presented to 
the Privy Council, whereupon they issued the following, 
which explains itself : — 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 555 

" At Whitehall, the 30*^ of October, 1623 — Present : — 
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Keeper, Lord Trea- 
surer, Lord President, Lord Privy Seal, Earl Marshall, Lord 
Viscount Grandison, Lord Chichester, Mr. Secretary Cal- 
vert, and the Master of the Rolls. Whereas their Lord- 
ships were this day informed that there is a great discour- 
agement amongst many adventurers of the plantation in 
Virginia, by reason of the intended reforming and change 
of the Government ; whereupon they are fearful to prose- 
cute their adventures so as it may concern some stop of 
those ships that are now ready freighted and bound for that 
Country ; although their Lordships marvell that any should 
be so far mistaken, considering the declarations which have 
been made at the Board viva voce, as also by an Act of Coun- 
cil and otherwise. Yet for the better satisfying of those 
who either through error of mistaking, or through the un- 
true suggestion of others, have conceived any such fear 
or discouragement, their Lordships do hereby think fit 
again to declare that there is no other intention than meerly 
and only the reforming and chatige of the present govern- 
ment, whereof his Majesty has seen so many bad effects as 
will be to the endangering of the whole plantation, if it 
continue as it is. Nevertheless, forasmuch as concerneth 
the private interest of any man, his Majesty's royal care 
is such that no man shall receive any prejudice, but shall 
have his estate wholly and fully conserved, and if in anything 
they be defective better to be secured, so as they need not 
apprehend any such fears or other inconvenience, but con- 
trariwise, cheerfully to proceed. It is therefore ordered by 
their Lordships, and thought fit to be published to the 
Company, that it is his Majesty's absolute command that 
the ships which were intended to be sent at this time to 
Virginia and are in some readiness to go, be sent away 
with all speed for the relief of those that be there, and the 
good of that plantation, and this to be presently done with- 
out stop or delay." 

This order was read in the Virginia court which met 



556 UNDER THE COMPANY 

November 1, and the court ordered tlaat public notice of 
this his Majesty's pleasure should be given accordingly to 
all such masters and owners of ships as were known to have 
any ships preparing to go to Virginia. 

On November 3, the Privy Council appointed Captain 
John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Peirsey, and Samuel 
Matthews, gentlemen, to be sent as their commissioners to 
Virginia, to make particular and diligent inquiry concern- 
ing the present state of the colony. Pory was especially 
commissioned to publish throughout Virginia the orders 
from the Privy Council of July 14, October 18 and 30. 
This Council also wrote a letter to the governor and Coun- 
cil in Virginia requiring them to yield to the commissioners 
their best aid upon all occasions. 

These commissioners were all interested in Virginia. Cap- 
tain John Harvey bought three shares in Virginia from 
William Lytton, Esq., on November 23, 1620, and had pre- 
viously been to the colony. He was captain and probably 
owner of the Southampton, a ship commissioned by the 
court of July 19, 1623, to carry passengers and goods to 
Virginia. She sailed from England in November, with 
Harvey, Pory, and thirty emigrants for Virginia. 

Although the present governing party in the Virginia 
Company was opposed by the king and a majority of his 
Privy Council, it had some friends in the Council, and very 
many among the Commons. It was necessary for the king 
to proceed with discretion, and the object of the royal com- 
mission in Virginia, as had been with the royal commission 
in England, was to find additional cause to justify the 
king in his determination to resume the government of the 
colony. 

The royal commissioners in England had made a search- 
ing inquiry into the management of the movement from 
the first. They heard and read the charges and counter- 
charges (made in person and in writing) of each party. 
They found that some disasters might have been prevented 
if the officials had had a foreknowledge ; that other disas- 



ENGLAND, APRIL — NOVEMBER, 1623 557 

ters could not have been prevented by any knowledge of 
those days ; and others could not have been prevented by 
any knowledge as yet revealed to man. But there was no 
real culpable mismanagement of any great consequence 
proven against either administration of the company, and 
no evil consequences for which the popular form of gov- 
ernment could really be held responsible. "Many days 
and weeks of the inquisition or persecution discovered no 
unworthinesse against them, or any other of their consorts." 
In 1609 the manao^ers of the movement had condemned 
the king's form of government as being a principal cause 
of the troubles in Virginia during 1607-1609. The king 
was naturally easily convinced that the popular government 
had caused the troubles since 1609, and that his form must 
have been wrongly condemned. The idea that the colony 
had been brousfht to a o-ood state of forwardness under his 
government ("without one ray of popular rights") — the 
good effects of which had been subsequently destroyed by 
the popular government ^ — conformed to the king's wishes ; 
but it was a mere pretext to justify him in his determination 
to resume the government of the colony and company. 
The authentic manuscript records, as well as the evidence 
(still preserved) which was submitted to this commission, 
really prove that the colony did not prosper under the 
crown, but that it was finally established under the popu- 
lar charters, which kindled the rays of popular rights that 
are now shining for us. 

1 The popular form of government subsequent events will show that the 
had been instituted in Virginia during popular ideas continued to obtain in 
the administration of Sir Thomas the minds of members of both parties. 
Smytfee. The parties in the company While Sir John Danvers, the right- 
had originated in disputes over busi- hand man of Sir Edwin Sandys, was 
ness matters, auditing accounts, the one of the regicides, it was Sir 
magazme, the tobacco contracts, etc., Thomas Wroth, a leader of the oppo- 
and not in opposition to the popular sition party in the company, who 
charters. It came to pass that some made the celebrated motion in Parlia- 
members of the opposition party, in ment " to lay the King [Charles I.] 
order to accomplish their object, were by, and to settle the Kingdom without 
finally willing to surrender the char- him," and the Earl of Warwick him- 
ters to the crown ; but a review of self became " a Parliament man." 



558 UNDER THE COMPANY 

There were so many members of the Vh-ginia Company 
that there must have been various ideas prevailing among 
them ; but from the first many of the foremost managers 
had been inspired by an earnest desire " to estabhsh a 
more free government in Virginia." The Smythe adminis- 
tration did not exclude any Protestant body from the new 
nation which they were planting in the new world, and 
the Sandys party vdshing especially to lay the foundation 
on the basis of civil and rehgious liberty were evidently 
anxious to welcome all Protestants. Roman Catholics, 
however, were excluded not only because the chief man- 
agers of the movement were of the Church of England, 
but also because the Church of Rome was naturally antago- 
nistic to the free government of the reformers, which was 
the model of Sir Edwin Sandys. The reformed religion 
required a reformation of governments, and reformers were 
protesting against the old oppressive forms of government 
as well as of religion. The issue is still existing, and the 
victory of the one side will be the defeat of the other. 
Was our foundation laid sufficiently broad to bear both 
parties, and strong enough to resist the full shock of the 
contest? If not, what will be the result of our Arma- 
geddon ? 



X 

VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 
SIB FRANCIS WYATT, GOVERNOR 

On September 10 the governor issued a proclamation 
warning Virginians " to be careful of the Indian's Treach- 
ery." 

The Bonny Bess, of ninety tons, belonging to Mr. Ga- 
briel Barber, left England in May with sixty persons and 
arrived in September with supplies for the colony, for 
Berkeley plantation, etc. ; letters from the Privy Council 
of England " counciling that peace and harmony among 
themselves which becometh the undertakers of such an 
action, the subjects of such a King and the possessors of 
our Religion ; " and from the company in England to the 
governor and Council in Virginia, with no allusions to the 
divisions in the company, mainly devoted to business mat- 
ters, and telling them that the tobacco contract made last 
summer by the company had been dissolved, and that the 
king was now proposing to grant " a sole importation of 
tobacco to the two plantations (Va. and S. I.), with an ex- 
ception only of 40,000 weight of ye best Spanish tobacco 
to be yearly brought in." This letter had been submitted 
to the Privy Council and was signed by members of both 
parties in the company. Anthony Hilton, in a letter to his 
mother, Mrs. EHzabeth Hilton, says that after landing in 
Virginia the ship was to go on to explore Hudson River. 
And " if we there find any strangers as Hollanders, or 
others which is thought this year do adventure there, we 
are to give them fight, and spoil and sink them down into 
the sea, which to do we are well provided with a lusty ship 



560 UNDER THE COMPANY 

(90 tons), stout seamen, and great ordnance. I pray God 
prosper us therein." 

John Ferrar said that his brother Nicholas was accused 
before the Privy Council with having " drawn up and sent 
to the Governor and plantation of Virginia certain danger- 
ous instructions, and inflammatory letters of advice, direct- 
ing them how they should conduct themselves in standing 
to their patent, and exhorting them that they should never 
give their consent to let it be delivered up." Ferrar does 
not give the date, and it is not certain whether his brother 
was accused of sending these things by the Bonny Bess, or 
by the Southampton, which did not arrive until the foUow- 
ing March ; but it is certain that notwithstanding the fact 
that the Privy Council warned all parties that no know- 
ledge of the controversy and divisions in the company 
should be sent to the colony by any one, as it might breed 
a bad effect in the plantation, this ship brought privately 
a full account of it from the Sandys party in England, 
including a copy of (HI.) Butler's " Unmasking," at which 
the officials in Virginia were much offended. Owing to 
their natural resentment at this unmasking, to the changed 
condition in Virginia from the want of the fall of 1622 to 
the plenty of the fall of 1623, and to other causes, the 
letters between the officials in Virginia and the managers 
in Enofland now came to a better accord. 

As soon as the knowledge of the great want in Virginia 
became known in England steps were at once taken to sup- 
ply the colonists. The George, a ship of 180 tons, sailed 
about August 14, with 241 hogsheads of victuals and other 
necessary provisions, shipped by divers private adventurers, 
namely : — 

" Mr Cheasley sendeth provisions 
Mr Edmond Hacketh " 

Mr Perry " 

Mr Prichard " 

Mr Felgate & Mr Tatum " 



Tons 


Hhds, 


u 


6 


2 


8 


2J 


9 


3i 


15 


H 


29 



Tons 


Hhds. 


li 


5 


5i 


21 


1 


2 


7f 


29 


2h 


9 


7 


28 


4 


16 


3 


12 


2f 


11 


2i 


9 




2 


2 


8 


5 


20 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 561 

Morrice Thompson sendeth provisions 
Mr Richard Stevens " 
Mr George Swinhowe " 
Mr James Gibbons " 

Mr White " 

♦ Mr Covell sendeth provisions of ) 
Meal, Butter, Cheese, &c j 
Mr Wentworth sendeth 
Mr NichoUs " 

Mr Edmond Barker " 
Mr Douse " 

Mr Pierce " 

Mr John Polhngton " 
Mr Wm. Ewens " 

" As for ye 70 planters & passengers they are not counted 
in this number, they carrying besides large provisions for 
themselves & ye people they carry with them. There is 
also carried for the magazine £200 worth of meal — so that 
the supplies sent by this ship are worth about £1500." 
These supplies reached Virginia in October, " when the 
fruits of their Hort-yards, Gardens, and early crops were 
beo^innino; to serve them." 

The Hopewell, of 60 tons, John Hart, master and " Cape 
merchant for the meal," commissioned to go to Virginia, 
and then to fish, left England in August, 1623, with 15 
emigrants, about £500 worth of meal and other provisions, 
and with a general letter from the company to the gov- 
ernor, and arrived late in the same year. The letter ^ says : 
" Touching the Comission we have nothing, the proceedings 
therein not having yet come to any conclusion that we 
know of. [They had made their report to the king in 
July ; but it was not to be made public until the meeting 
of the Privy Council in the fall.] We dont doubt but it 
will conduce to the advancement of the plantation accord- 
ing to the Royal intention of his Majesty declared in the 

^ Randolph MSS., p. 173, in Virginia Historical Society Library. 



562 UNDER THE COMPANY 

institution thereof. We are deeply touched with the mor- 
tality, scarcity and uncomfortableness among you of which 
we had notice from the Lords of the Privy Council [who 
had intercepted the letters, etc.] For the reHef of scarcity 
his Majesty was very solicitous whereupon we got up a 
subscription of £700 to be sent in meal (other commodities 
you have even to a superfluity) ; for which meal we expect 
a just retribution. Tobacco clears here but 20*^ per pound 
which we desire all may know that we may be freed from 
the unjust taxations of oppressions in selling meal in Vir- 
ginia at 30 shilHngs per Bushel — that is 10 lbs tobacco, 
and we are certain our meal cost us 12 shillings per Bushel. 
We desire your care in seeing us paid as soon as possible. 
For our former supplies we are £2.000 sterling behind 
which is a great discouragement. The adventurers of the 
Maids desire our recommendation to you of that business 
desiring their pay. The Fur adventurers by the wickedness 
of the Captain and Mariners are quite overthrown. We 
desire your especial care in the Glass and Shipwrights 
(which last business was the most expensive we ever under- 
took) and to make us quick retribution. Except you fall 
upon other comodities than Tobacco you may not expect a 
subsistence. We hope you have got a good entrance into 
Silk and Vines, and we expect some returns — or it will be 
a discredit to us and to you and give room to the maligners 
of the Plantation. Encourage the Frenchmen to stay, if 
not forever, at least 'till they have taught our people their 
skill in silk and vines. Nine men sent to make Iron by a 
Bloomery are to be assisted by private persons who shall 
have shares, or by the Company's tenants ; seat them at 
Martin's Hundred or some more commodious place, and 
choose a director for them. The passengers had been 
more but for a disparagement of the plantation, therefore 
take good care of these. We approve of driving away 
your enemies by a lawful and just pohcy. Send no more 
Sassafras. Proceed on the Fort. Don't think it long e'er 
we send tenants for the Governor's and Treasurer's lands ; 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 563 

it is difficult to do but hope to accomplish it next Spring. 
Let the profits of the tenants belonging to Capt Thomas 
Nuce's place be given to his virtuous widow this year," 
etc. " Given in a great and General Court held for Vir- 
ginia August 16, 1623, and ordered to be sent in the 
name of the Company to the Governor and Council of 
Sta^te in Virginia." 

The planters in Virginia constantly complained of the 
prices for commodities fixed by the company. As to Mr. 
Hart, they said that he charged for a bushel of meal nine 
pounds of tobacco, for which their price was three shillings 
per pound, — that is, twenty-seven shilhngs per bushel, 
when it cost in England less than seven shillings. The 
company replied : " Tobacco only worth ISd pr lb. and 
meal cost, including freight etc. over 13s per bushel," etc. 

Late in March, 1623, Captain Samuel Jordan, of " Jor- 
dan's Journey," died. Three or four days thereafter, the 
Rev. Grivell Pooley came to see Captain Isaac Madison touch- 
ing a match with Mrs. Jordan, and entreated Madison to 
move the matter to her. " At first Madison was unwilling 
to medle in any such business, but being urged finally con- 
sented. And broached the subject to Mrs Jordan, who 
replied that she would as willingly have M'' Pooley as any 
other, but she would not marry any man until she was 
delivered." This was all that a man in his mind ouofht 
to have asked ; but Pooley could not wait, and soon went to 
see her himself. He reported to Captain Madison that he 
had contracted himself unto her, and desired Madison to 
go with him and be a witness to it. Madison went with 
him, and when " M'^ Pooley desired a dram, Mrs Jordan 
desired her servant to fetch it ; but Pooley said he would 
have it of her fetching or not at all. Then she went into 
a room ; Madison and Pooley followed her ; and when Mr. 
Pooley was come to her he told her he should contract him- 
self unto her — and spake these words — ' I Grivell Pooley 
take thee Sysley, to my wedded wife, to have & to hold, 
till death us do part, and thereto, I plight thee my troth.' 



564 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Then (holding her by the hand) he spake these words, ' I 
Sysley take thee Grivell to my wedded husband to have and 
to hold till death us do part.' But MacUson heard not 
her say any of those words, nor that M'^ Pooley asked her 
whether she did consent to those words ; then M' Pooley 
and she dranke each to other, and he kissed her, and spake 
these words, ' I am thine and thou art mine, till death us 
separate.' Mrs Jordan then desired that it might not be 
revealed that she did so soon bestow her love after her 
husband's death, whereupon M" Pooley protested before 
God that he would not reveal it till she thought the time 
fitting." He failed to keep his promise, however, and told 
of his good luck. Mrs. Jordan resented this, then con- 
tracted herself to Mr. William Ferrar (the brother of the 
deputy-treasurers, John and Nicholas Ferrar), before the 
governor and Council, disavowing the former contract and 
affirming the latter. On June 14, Mr. Pooley " called her 
into court," and instituted against her the first breach of 
promise suit in English America. The case came up before 
" the Council of State " (the court) : Governor Wyatt, Sir 
George Yeardley, Mr. George Sandys, Roger Smith, Ralph 
Hamor, and Mr. John Pountis. They were unable to de- 
cide, however, and continued it to November 27, when 
Mrs. Mary Madison and her servant John Harris were ex- 
amined before the governor and Secretary Davison. Neither 
of these witnesses was present at the supposed contracting, 
but both had heard Mrs. Jordan say that " Mr. Pooley 
miofht have fared the better had he not revealed it." " The 
Council in Virginia (not knowing how to decide so nice a 
difference, our devines not taking upon them pressily to 
determine whether it bee a formal and legall contract) 
referred the case to the Company in England desiring the 
resolution of the civil Lawyers thereon and a speedy return 
thereof." And to prevent the like in the future the court 
issued the following proclamation : " Whereas, to the great 
contempt of the majesty of God and ill example to others, 
certain women within this Colony have, of late, contrary to 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 565 

the laws ecclesiastical of the realm of England, contracted 
themselves to two several men at one time, whereby much 
trouble doth grow between parties, and the Governor and 
Council of State much disquieted : To prevent the like 
offense to others, it is by the Governor and Council or- 
dered in Court that every minister give notice in his church, 
to his parishioners, that what man or woman soever shall 
use any words or speech tending to the contract of mar- 
riage though not right and legal, yet may so entangle and 
breed struggle in their consciences, shall for the third offense 
undergo either corporal punishment, or the punishment by 
fine, or otherwise, according to the guilt of the persons so 
offending." 

Captain Francis West, as I have stated, arrived in Vir- 
ginia prior to April 9, 1623, and in May or June went to 
the northward, under the commission from the New Eng- 
land Council, to expel interlopers from New England waters ; 
" but he could do no good of them, for they were too strong 
for him, and he found the fishermen to be stubborn fel- 
lows. ... So they went from hence to Virginia." He 
left Virginia again in July, and arrived in New England in 
August. " In September the same ship and company being 
discharged by him at Damarins Cove came to New Plym- 
outh, where upon our earnest inquiry after the state of 
Virginia since that bloody slaughter committed by the In- 
dians upon our friends and countrymen, the whole ship's 
company agreed that upon all occasion they chased the In- 
dians to and fro, insomuch as they sued daily unto the 
English for peace, who for the present would not admit of 
any, that Sir George Early [Yeardley] was at that present 
employed upon service against them." Edward Winslow 
sailed from New Plymouth on the Ann, September 20, 
1623. At the Virginia court of November 22, 1623, " M' 
Deputy acquainted the court with the good news sent from 
Virginia by the ships lately returned from New England 
(where a pinnace from Virginia arrived before they came 
away and brought divers particular letters that do import 



566 UNDER THE COMPANY 

tlius much, namely, that the Colony in Virginia have re- 
covered health ; that they were in hopes to have a plentiful 
harvest of corn and tobacco ; that Oppochanchano is slain 
and, as some affirm 150 of his great men, and that our 
English were then going out again to pursue the rest of 
them and to destroy their corn)." Deputy Ferrar also told 
the court of the letters from Virginia, brought by these 
ships via New England, which were in the hands of the 
commissioners. The letters from the governor and Council 
in Virginia to the Earl of Southampton, of June 24, and 
from D. Canne to John Delbridge, of July 12, have been 
preserved. The New England records show that the 
Ann, of 140 tons, left England in May ; arrived in New 
England in July, and returned September 20. The Vir- 
ginia records show that the Ann, of 40 tons, left Eng- 
land in May, with 25 persons, for Virginia, and arrived 
there in August. I suppose these references to be to the 
same ship, and that the difference in the tonnage is an 
error of one record or the other. There was a more or less 
constant intercourse between Virginia and New England ; 
but the records are incomplete, and as the Virginians per- 
sisted in calling " New England" " Canada," there is some 
confusion. 

Captain Robert Gorges, who had been sent as lieutenant- 
general of New England ; Captain Francis West, admiral ; 
Christopher Levett, governor of Plymouth ; David Thomp- 
son, and two of the colony of New Plymouth, who had been 
made councilors, met at Piscataqua (where David Thomp- 
son had recently planted a colony) in October, 1623, took 
their oaths, and, it is said, organized a government for New 
England for the first time. The Rev. William Morrell, of 
the Church of England, was commissioned to superintend 
the estabhshment of that church throughout New England. 
Captain Gorges' ship, the Katharine, having some passen- 
gers for Virginia, sailed there in November or Decemberj 
1623, and it is possible that Captain Francis West returned 
on her, as he was in Virginia in January, 1624. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 567 

Rev. Francis Bolton was the minister on the eastern 
shore, and on December 1, when Governor Wyatt was on 
the following expedition, he issued an order to Captain 
William Epes, the commander of that plantation, requiring 
him to collect for the minister's salary ten pounds of tobacco 
and one bushel of corn from every planter and tradesman 
above the age of sixteen and aHve at the gathering of the 
crops, throughout all the plantations on the eastern shore. 
I take these to be the usual (tax or tithe) rates at that 
time. 

" November 28*'' 1623. The Governor being going to 
settle a trade with the Savages in the Bay comissionates 
the Council to execute all his Authorities." 

" As soon as our corn was ripe the Governor set forward 
to the river of Potomack to settle the trade with our friends 
and to revenge the treachery of the Pascoticons [Anacos- 
tans] and their associatts being the greatest people in those 
parts of Virginia, who had cutt off Capt. Spillman and Mr 
Pountis his Pinnace : in which expedition, he put many to 
the sword, and burnt their houses with a marveilous quan- 
tity of corn carried by them so far into the woods that it 
was not possible to bring it to our boats. The maine rea- 
son that invited the Governor unto that river was an agree- 
ment made the last year by Mr. Treasurer Sandys with the 
Potomacks our auncient Allies (of whom great numbers were 
murthered by those nations) not only to assist us in that 
revenge, but to accompany us and be our guides in a war 
against the Pamunkes, which would have been very advan- 
ta<reous to us ; but the unseasonableness of the weather had 
detained the expedition so long that the necessities of the 
country enforced the Governor to leave his chiefe intention 
for Pamunkie. It is no small difficulty to maintain a war 
with people dependant on their own labors for their sup- 
port ; the chief time of doing the enemy most spoil being 
at our busiest season. And whereas we are advised by you 
[the Virginia Company in England] to observe rules of jus- 
tice with these barbarous and perfidious enemyes ; we hold 



568 UNDER THE COMPANY 

nothing unjust (except breach of faith) that may tend to 
their mine. Stratagems were ever allowed against all ene- 
mies ; but with these neither faire warre nor good quarter is 
ever to be held. Nor is there other hope of theire subver- 
sion, whoever may informe you to the contrary." 

The general letter from Virginia does not mention the 
act ; but a ship leaving Virginia about this time carried the 
news to England that the English (upon a treaty with the na- 
tives for peace and good quarter) had poisoned a great many 
of them. Dr. John Potts was said to have been the chief 
actor in it and was very much blamed in England therefor. 

The following three ships arrived not long before Febru- 
ary, 1624: — 

The WilHam and John, fifty tons, commissioned to go 
to Virginia in February, 1623, went via Flushing in the 
spring, taking " victual to the value of ^£500 " for trade, 
and six emigrants. She left England before the open rup- 
ture in the company. 

The God's Gift, eighty tons, Mr. Bennet's ship, Mr. 
Clare, master, left England in June, with twelve emigrants, 
after the open rupture (but before the return of the Abi- 
gail), with about forty-six hogsheads of pease, meal, and 
oatmeal, going via the Somers Islands. 

The Truelove, forty-six tons, James Carter, master, com- 
missioned to go to Virginia, then a fishing voyage, left 
England in July, with twenty-five emigrants, after the re- 
turn of the Abigail with the news of the scarcity in Vir- 
ginia, taking about 100 hogsheads of provisions, valued at 
,£536, for the plantation of the Truelove society, and for 
the colony. 

Owing to various delays, these ships did not reach Vir- 
ginia until after harvest, and they found the colony well 
suppHed with provisions, " but very skant of powder and 
shot." 

Secretary Christopher Davison died between December 
1, 1623, and February, 1624. Edward Sharpless, who had 
been his clerk, became acting secretary. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 569 

The officials in Virginia, taking Jolinson's Petition and 
Butler's Unmasking (copies of which had been sent to 
them from England) as reflections upon themselves, re- 
sented those papers as bitterly as the officials in England 
had done, and ever since the arrival of the Bonny Bess in 
September, 1623, they had been preparing their answers to 
them, " taking the matter in hand in their general courts, 
and afterwards in their General Assembly. ^^ 

The g'overnor issued warrants for summoninsf a General 
Assembly on February 5. Three days thereafter the gov- 
ernor and Council of Virginia wrote a general letter to the 
Virginia Company telling them of affairs in Virginia ; of 
the wars with the Indians ; they blame the " pestered con- 
dition " of the ships for the deaths of the newcomers, " the 
ould planters considering the accidents living as long here 
as in most parts of England ; " they urge the company to 
diminish the j)lanting of tobacco by paying the colonist 
eight shillings a bushel for corn ; they had " at all times 
bent their endeavours to the furthering of those staple com- 
modities, which you have given us in charge," — iron- 
works, vines, silk, glass-works, shipwrights, etc. They 
thank the king for " his gracious intention of restreyning 
the sole importation of Tobacco to the two Colonies," and 
for the meal. " And we hope notwithstanding the mallice 
of our Aarulent traducers, to approve ourselves in our ac- 
tions not unworthie the continuance of his favor." They 
also thank the Privy Council for their care. They handle 
Captain Nathaniel Butler without gloves, " but we will re- 
fer his unmasking of Virginia to a particular unmasking of 
him by the General Assembly, in as much as concerns the 
Countrie, and by ourselves in the slanders that concerne 
our government." They state that the General Assembly 
" has been already summoned." 

" When we wrote in June 1623, the colony was then 
tvxAf in health ; but soon after the general sickness came 
on, great numbers fell down in many places, and we were 
obliged to discontinue the work on the fort ; but hope that 
the General Assembly will take steps to proceed therein. 



570 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Thus referring other things to our next letter which 
shall be written after the General Assembly ; beseeching 
God to free both you and us from the malice of our adver- 
saries, and to give his blessing to our endeavours and suf- 
ferinsrs." " Francis Wyatt. 

" Francis West. " George Yeardley. 

"George Sandys. "John Pott. 

" Roger Smith." 

" On Feb'y 12*^ Governor Wyatt wrote a letter to the 
company briefly relating the manner of proceeding against 
the Savages in divers places and by what commanders the 
service was performed ; and hopeth that in the General 
Assembly now called in Virginia some good order will be 
taken to maintain an army for securing of the whole 
Colony." 

" On Feby 26*^ two Burgesses were elected out of every 
plantation by the major part of voices." On the same day 
" A List of the Living in Virginia," ^ and of those " who 
died there between April 1623 and Feb'y 1624," was 
taken. Copies of these lists, of the general letters of Feb- 
ruary 8 and 9, of Wyatt's letter of February 12, of the 
papers in Pooley's case, etc., were now sent to England by 
the George. The planters, John Boyle, Richard Brewster, 
Henry Wentworth, William Perry (who carried an Indian 
boy with him), William Best, and others, went over at the 
same time with complaints against the officials in Virginia, 
which they presented to the king about April 18. 

The General Assembly met about February 29, and at 
once undertook their answers to (II.) Alderman Johnson's 
Petition and (III.) Butler's Unmasking, and completed and 
signed them on ^"^^^ ^^'JiT' ^^® answers to both were 
addressed to the king : — 

^ This list contains the names of tains a good many names of those who 

about 1170 emigrants ; but the nam- were dead. There were certainly less 

ber is evidently exaggerated. Thirty- than 1100 emigrants then living in the 

four names are repeated, and it con- colony. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 571 

(A) " The Answer of the General Assembly in Vir- 
ginia to the Declaration of the state of the colony [II.] in 
the twelve years of Sir Thomas Smythe's government, ex- 
hibited by Alderman Johnson and others (generally called 
* The Tragical Relation ')," is signed by Francis Wyatt, 
George Sandys, Samuel Matthews, Clement Dilke, J. Poun- 
tis, Jabez Whitaker, Luke Boys, John Pott, Edward Blay- 
ney (or Blaine), John Utie, Thomas Morlet (or Marloe), 
Nicolas Marlier (or Martian), John Chewe, Richard Stephens, 
John Wilcocks, and John Southerne, who " affirmed it to 
be true ; " and by Francis West, William Peirce, William 
Tucker, George Yeardley, Samuel Sharpe, Ralph Hamor, 
Henry Watkins, Isaac Madison, Richard Biggs, Richard 
Kingsmill, Nathaniel Causey, John Pollington, Robert 
Adams, Gabriel Holland, and Ralegh Crashawe, " eye wit- 
nesses or resident within in the country when every particu- 
lar written was effected." Total, 31 signatures. 

(B) The answer to "an Information presented unto 
your Majestic [HI.] by Captaine Nathaniel Butler, intituled 
' The Unmasking of Virginia,' " has 34 signatures, the 
same as the above, save that John Southerne fails to sign, 
while it contains the additional signatures of Roger Smith, 
Nathaniel Bass, Isaac Chaplain, and Thomas Harries. It 
must be noted that I am giving these names from the 
copies of these papers sent to England. I infer from 
Stith's " History of Virginia " (pages 304-312) and Neill's 
" Virginia Company " (page 411), that Francis West and 
George Yeardley did not sign " The Tragical Relation," 
while Roger Smith did, the total signatures being 30. 
And the different copies of the papers themselves differ in 
many words and sentences. 

Three days after these answers were signed the South- 
ampton, 180 tons, arrived (on March 4) with a commission 
to Captain John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Peirsey, and 
Samuel Matthews (John Jefferson was also named in the 
commission ; but he was probably the " Captain Jefferson," 
then on the Great Hopewell, which had not arrived in Vir- 



572 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ginia), " to make an exact information of the present state 
of the Plantation in divers points." 

Harvey and Pory found men's " mynds fully possessed." 
" They were met in a Generall Assembly, the first fruites 
whereof, were most bitter invectives in the highest pitehe 
of spleen and detraction against the twelve yeares govern- 
ment of Sir Thomas Smith and in answer to Mr. Alderman 
Jonson and Captain Butler." 

On March 5, Harvey delivered to the General Assembly 
the letter and order from the Privy Council of November 
3, 1623. And Pory " pubhshed " therein, according to the 
orders given him, the orders ^ of the Privy Council of July 
14 (relative to suppHes for Virginia), of October 18 (to 
surrendering their charter, the king's resuming the govern- 
ment, etc.), and of October 30 (to changing the present 
form of government, etc.). While there could be no 
reasonable objection to the commissioners obtaining exact 
information, these last two orders read by Pory (who was 
the first speaker of the first General Assembly) were ant- 
agonistic to the form of government to the judgment and 
consideration of which they were now presented. They 
contained no provision for a House of Burgesses nor a Gen- 
eral Assembly. The voice of the people was not heard in 
them. The popular charters were to be surrendered, and 
the whole government ("the Governor and his Assistants") 
was to be at the disposal of the king. They must have 
been more objectionable to the General Assembly than the 
papers which they had just answered ; but circumstances 
made it necessary for them to be very wary in their replies. 
They determined to ignore the commissioners and to ad- 
dress themselves in reply directly to the king and to his 
Privy Council. Their Petition (C) to the king and Letter 
to the Privy Council (D) were ready on March 10. The 
Petition (C) is outlined in Stith's "History of Virginia" 
(pages 312, 313). There were 29 signers, and there was 

^ These important orders will be found given in full in the English chapters 
of this book. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623— MAY, 1624 573 

inclosed therein "A Binefe Declaration [E] of the Planta- 
tion of Virginia during the first twelve yeares, when Sir 
Thomas Smith was governor of the Companie, & downe to 
this present Tyme. By the Ancient Planters now remain- 
ing alive in Virginia." This Declaration (E) is not signed; 
but it is indorsed " Read in General Assembly and fully 
approved." ^ 

Their Letter to the Privy Council (D) is also extracted 
from by Stith (pages 313-315). They write, " V^e have in 
due submission to your Lordships published your orders 
sent over by Mr. Pory, whereby we understand his Majesties 
intention in changing the Government of this Colony : we 
are ignorant of the dangers and ruynes that might have 
befallen us by the continuance of the former," etc. They 
" humbhe desire that the Governors that are sent over may 
not have absolute authority. We desire that the Governor 
may be restrayned as formerly to the consent of his Coun- 
sell, which tytle we desire may be retayned to the honor of 
this Plantation and not converted to the name of his As- 
sistants.'' 

" But above all we humbly intreat your Lordships that 
we may retaine the Libertie of our Generall Asseinblie, 
than which nothing can more conduce to our satisfaction 
or the publique utilitie." There are 30 signatiu-es to this 
letter, including Samuel Matthews. He had signed the 
two answers of March 1 before receiving his commission ; 
but this noble letter is the only one of these papers signed 
by him after he became a commissioner. 

Having waited a week after publishing the orders in the 
General Assembly, without hearing from them thereon, on 
March 12 the commissioners (Harvey, Pory, Peirsey, and 
Matthews) wrote " to the Right worp" S'' Francis Wyatt, 
Knight, governor & Capt Generall of Virginia and to the 
Right Worp" and others of the Generall Assemblie," call- 
ing their attention to the long delay, and inclosing a form 

^ Senate Document (extra). Colonial Records of Virginia, Richmond, 
1874. pp. 69-83. 



574 UNDER THE COMPANY 

to be subscribed by the General Assembly, submitting 
themselves to the " King's princely pleasure of revoking 
the ould Pattents and of vouchsafeing his Majesties new 
Letters pattents " for instituting another " forme of Gov- 
ernment, whereby his worke may be upheld and better 
prosper in time to come." 

On the same day Captain John Harvey, of the commis- 
sion, asked the General Assembly for answers to the " four 
propositions which will be referred to hereafter." 

The governor. Council, and General Assembly replied at 
once to the letter from the commissioners (returning " the 
form to be subscribed unsigjied "), and saying : " We have 
presented our humblest thanks [C and E] to his sacred 
Majestie for his gracious and tender care over us and have 
returned our answers [D] (in due submission) to their 
Lordships Letters and Orders. 

" When our consent to the surrender of the Pattents, 
shalbe required, will be the most proper time to make 
reply : in the mean time wee conceive his Majesties inten- 
tion of changing the government hath proceeded from 
much misinformation, which we hope may be allowed upon 
our more faithful declarations. 

" Since we conceive not how this last proposition [for 
surrendering their patent, etc.] hath had ground from any 
instructions which we have yet seen. We desire that before 
the General Assemblie be disolved (which will be to-mor- 
row) you will shew us the depth of your Authority : or 
otherwise to sett it downe under your hands that you have 
no further Commission or Instructions, which may concern 
us as you have already professed." 

To this letter the commissioners replied, the next day, as 
follows : — 

"Yesterday at the delivery of our papers, we acknow- 
ledged that we had neither Commission nor Instructions 
to move [you] to subscribe to that forme of subscription 
and thankf nines to his Majestie which then we presented. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 575 

Neither can so much as a shadow of any such thing be col- 
lected out of our Letter, or motion therein enclosed. What 
we propounded was out of our discretion by way of Coun- 
sell for the good of this Plantation ; not precipitate nor 
sudden, but proper to the time, occasion and Company. 
And the marke aimed at, was no less than his Majesties 
favor upon our persons and common cause to be obteyned 
by obedience and thankfulness. Now as there needed 
neither Commission nor instruction for us to propound the 
practice of so eminent a duty, so it is lawfull and free for 
us being free men and Planters to offer to the Generall 
Assemblie any reasonable motion thought of even of farr 
less consequence. And therefore had you not been content 
to have given us an answer you might have seemed to us 
discontent or discourteous. 

" Neither upon this occasion have you reason to search 
into the depth of our Authority (seeing our yesterdays 
motion dependeth not nor needs to depend upon our parti- 
cular Commission) much less to urge us to set down any- 
thing under our hands. 

" Nor can we profess that we have no further Commis- 
sion which may concern you, than that we have already put 
in execution for our Commission yet unperformed concern- 
eth you in your persons, servants, corne, Cattle, Arms, 
houses, etc. 

" Nor need you suspect that we will attempt anything to 
the wrong of any man, or which we cannot very well an- 
swer, so we rest — 

" The same as formerly, 

" John Harvey 

" James Citty " John Poky 

" March ^% 162f " Abraham Persey 

" Samuell Mathewes." 

The Assembly made no written reply to this. What is 
given as their reply by Stith (page 318) was written the 
day before. But before being dissolved, to enable the com- 



576 UNDER THE COMPANY 

missioners to take a view of the exact state of the colony, 
the Assembly ordered that the several plantations should 
transport them from plantation to plantation, as they should 
desire. 

(F) Their answers to Harvey's four propositions were as 
follows : — 

" 1. What places in the country are best or most proper 
to he fortified or mainteyned against Indians, or other 
enemies that may come hy Sea ? ^ 

" Pointe Comfort is of most use but great charge and 
difficultie. Warriscoyake where the fortification was in- 
tended more effectual to secure the places above it. From 
Wyanoke Marish upwards there are divers places which 
may peremptorily command Shippinge or Boates. The best 
against the Indians, and most of use for the future increase 
of plentie, is the runninge of a pale from Martin's Hundred 
to Cheskacke, which is not above five miles ; and planting 
upon both Rivers. The river of Pamunkey beinge also 
more defensible against a forrein enymie. 

" 2. How the Colony now stands in respect of the Sav- 
ages ? 

" The termes betwixt us and them are irreconcihable : 
the charge of draweinge [driving ?] them awaye which 
would reduce us to a better estate then we were in before 
the Massacre is so great as it is too weighty for us to sup- 
port, though hitherto we have done whatsoever was possi- 
ble for our means and numbers to effect. An enemy from 
whom there is no spoil to be expected ; the advantage of 
the woods and nimbleness of their heels prevents execution : 
the harmes that they do us is by ambushes and sudden in- 
cursions, where they see their advantages, we never since 
the massacre having lost one man in any expedition against 
them. The inconveniencies that we receive from them are. 
of farre more consequence ; we have not the safe range of 
the Country for increase of Cattle, Swyne, etc. ; nor for 
the game and fowle which the country affords in great 

^ A war with Spain was threatened. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 577 

plentye ; besides our duties to watch and warde to secure 
ourselves and labor are as hard and chargeable as if the 
enemy were at all tymes present. 

" 3. What hopes may truly and really he conceived of 
this Plantation f 

" We hould it to be one of the goodlyest partes of the 
Earth, aboundinge with navigable Rivers (full of variety 
of fish and fowl) falling from high and steep mountains 
which by the general relation of the Indians are rich with 
mines of Gold, Silver and Copper. Another Sea lyeing 
within sixe days jorney beyond them into which other 
Rivers descende. The soyle fruitfuU and apt to produce 
the best sorts of Commodities — replenished with many trees 
for severall uses, gummes, dyes, earths and simples of ad- 
mirable virtue. Vines and Mulberry trees growing wilde 
in great quantities, the woods full of deer, Turkies, and 
other beasts and birds for more particular relation we refer 
you to the Reportes ^ of Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir Thomas 
Dale made unto the Company, conceiving those praises 
no way hyperbolical, nor any Country more worthie of a 
Prince's care and supportance. 

" 4. Which be the directest means to attain to these 
hopes ^ 

" The way to attain to these hopes : is to have a run- 
ninge [army ? "] continually a f oote to keep the Indians 
from setting on any place that is neere us — to send over 
numbers of people to arrive here about the Prime of Win- 
ter with provisions of Cattle and with full provisions for 
themselves for at least a year, in the mean time they to fall 
only upon the planting of Vines and Mulberry trees — and 
to send men over that are expert in those faculties, to plant 
gardens and orchards, and such things as are useful for the 
sustenance of man's life — to raise the price of tobacco by 
the sole importation, and reducing the customs to the Rate 
of the Letters Pattents. And when the Country shalbe 
blessed with plenty of such provisions, and multitude of 

^ These Reports have not been found. ^ The word is not legible. 



578 UNDER THE COMPANY 

people — then to proceede in the discovery of the Wealth 
of the Mountains and Comodities of the Seas that are credi- 
bly reported to be beyond them. 

" A care must be had that ships come not over pestered, 
and that they may be well used at sea with that plenty and 
goodnes of dyet as is promised in England but seldom per- 
formed ; that when they first come they fall to building 
of good and convenient houses, and bring men over for 
that purpose : that for the first year they only endeavour 
themselves to the planting of corn, to the making of gar- 
dens, to the choosing and inclosing of fit places for their 
Cattle, and to the planting only of so much tobacco as may 
serve to sustain them in necessary clothing for the succeed- 
ing year. A proportion of Mault they should also bring 
over to make themselves beer, that the sudden dynnking of 
water ^ cause not too great alteration in their bodyes : that 
they should imploye themselves to the planting of English 
graine, that thereby we may have the hopes of two harvests 
[wheat in the summer and corn in the fall]. And that 
such numbers may be seated together as may be able to 
secure themselves, and to make good such a part of the 
Country as they may have free and secure range for the 
sustenance and increase of their Cattle. This done we do 
not doubt but in convenient tyme to purchase to his Majes- 
tic a rich and flourishinge Kingdome." Signed by Gov- 
ernor Wyatt and thirty others. 

On March 12, Wyatt wrote that he would dissolve the 
General Assembly on the next day ; but as (G) the Laws 
and Orders concluded on were not signed until March 15, 
it was probably dissolved on that day. These laws are 
printed in Hening's " Statutes at Large ... of Virginia," ^ 
and they speak well for their makers. They reached Eng- 
land too late for ratification by the courts of the Virginia 
Company, but most of them were again passed by subse- 
quent general assembhes. One of the most important 

^ It should be noted that in those days the English seldom drank water ; 
their drink being ale, beer, etc. ^ Vol. i. pp. 121-129. 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 579 

articles is the " 8*^ That the Governor shall not lay any 
taxes or impositions upon the Colony, their lands or como- 
dities, other way than by the authority of the General As- 
sembly, to be levyed and imployed as the said Assembly 
shall appoynt." 

The 22d of March (0. S.), the anniversary of the mas- 
sacre, was to be observed as a holiday. 

" The old planters that were here before or came in at 
the last coming of Sir Thomas Gates they and their pos- 
terity " were to be granted certain privileges.^ 

The 35th and last article was as follows : " That Mr. 
John Pountis, counsellor of State, going to England (being 
willing by our intreatie to accept of that imployment,) to 
solicite the, general cause of the Country to his Majesty 
and the [Privy] Counsell — towards the charges of which 
voyage, the country consente to pay for every male head 
above sixteen years of age then living, which have been 
here a year, four pounds of the best merchantable tobacco, 
in leafe, at or before the last of October next." The copy 
(G) sent to England is signed by Francis Wyatt, governor, 
Francis West, George Yeardley, George Sandys, John 
Pott, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, and John Pountis, of 
the Council of State, and the following members of the 
House of Burgesses : — 

From the Incorporation of Henrico : for the College 
Plantation, Thomas Morlett and Gabriel Holland. 

From the Incorporation of Charles City : for the Neck 
of Land, Luke Boys and Thomas Harris ; West and Sher- 
low Hundred, Isaac Madison and Richard Biggs ; Jordan's 
Journey, Nathaniel Causey ; Chaplain's Choice, Isaac Chap- 
lain ; Westover, Samuel Sharpe. 

From the Incorporation of James City : Jamestown, 
Wm. Pierce, Clement Dilke, Richard Stephens, Edw. Blay- 
ney (or Blaine), and John Southerne ; James Island, Rob- 

^ This Act was reenacted by gen- thus officially and repeatedly acknow- 
eral assemblies in 1632, 1643, 1658, ledged to be the founders of the new 
and 1662. These "old planters " were commonwealth. 



580 UNDER THE COMPANY 

ert Adams ; the Neck of Land, Richard Kingsmill ; " Ye 
Plantations over against James Citty," Edward Grindon 
(the other burgess from this plantation, Samuel Matthews, 
one of the commissioners, did not sign these articles) ; Hog 
Island, John Utie and John Chew; Warraskoyack, John 
Pollington ; Basse's Choice, Nathaniel Basse (in some of 
the copies this name is written Basset). 

From the Incorporation of Elizabeth City : for Eliza- 
beth City, Wm. Tucker and Nicholas Martian (Martieu, 
Marlier, etc.) ; Elizabeth City beyond Hampton River, 
Jabez Whitaker and Ralegh (or Rawley) Crashaw. 

From the Eastern Shore : John Wilcocks and Henry 
Watkins. 

It seems, from Hening, that the paper preserved in the 
colony was not signed by Isaac Madison, Samuel Sharpe, 
or Edward Grindon. The seven documents gotten up by 
this General Assembly are signed by 36 different persons, 
all of whom, save Matthews, signed the aforesaid (G) Laws, 
Orders, or Articles, and 21 of whom signed all six of the 
signed documents, — the whole number being composed of 
the governor, 7 members of the Council, and 28 members 
of the House of Burgesses. But, if as stated, " two bur- 
gesses were elected out of every plantation," not all of 
them were signers, for there were no signers from some 
plantations, and only one from others. This fact, and the 
embassy of Richard Brewster, William Perry, and others 
to England, is an evidence that Harvey was correct in 
stating that there were two parties in the colony. 

There are many noble sentiments in these papers sent 
from the Assembly of Virginia to the crown in England, 
but several of them are marred by an attack on the former 
administration. They are not unfavorable to Yeardley, 
who was the only former governor among the signers ; but 
if there was any just cause for blame in the premises, many 
of the signers were really as culpable as the officials in 
England, and the questions at issue pertained to the pre- 
sent and future of the colony rather than the past. Since 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623— MAY, 1624 581 

July, 1623, it had been settled by " the powers that be " 
that the government of the colony and company should be 
resumed by the king; and the chief questions, so far as 
the crown was concerned, were (1) as to the present condi- 
tion of the plantation ; (2) as to whether the colony would 
yield up their charter willingly ; and (3) as to the terms 
of the proposed new charter. 

The following ships arrived in Virginia in the spring of 
1624 : the Return, 40 tons ; the Due Return, of Lynn, 
60 to 80 tons, captain and owner, E. Tutchin, who died, 
leaving the charge of the vessel to his brother Simon 
Tuchin, or Tutchin ; the Jacob, 80 tons, John Fells, mas- 
ter; the Great Hopewell, 120 tons, John Prynn, owner 
and master (reached St. Christopher's, in the West Indies, 
in February) ; the Marmaduke, 80 to 100 tons, John 
Dennis, master (left England in September, 1623, with 30 
emigrants, came by the West Indies, the usual route, and 
arrived in Virginia probably late in March). These ships 
all had victuals, etc., for the colonists or for trade ; and 
they were all commissioned to make a voyage to Virginia, 
and thence a fishing voyage to " Canada" (New England). 

Mr. John Harrison, at the custom-house, sent his brother 
George Harrison in Virginia foiu* menservants by the Mar- 
maduke (one of whom remained in the West Indies), and 
an invoice of goods, etc., amounting to over £100, includ- 
ing meal, oatmeal, pease, cheese, suet, etc., vinegar, oil, 
aqua vitse, etc. (no coffee nor tea, as they had not come 
into general use) ; sugar, cloves, mace, ginger, pepper, cin- 
namon, nuts, etc. ; felling-axes, handsaws, hatchets, augers, 
"chisseUs," hammers, bills, drawing-knives, broad hoes, nar- 
row hoes, nails, etc. ; canvas and kersey suits, Monmouth 
caps, shirts, bands, and shoes for servants, Irish stockings, 
knit stockings, boots, shoes, " hats and bands," bands, cuffs, 
Holland cloth, etc. ; armors, swords, powder, " hail shott," 
pistol and goose shot, etc. ; " one long fowling peece of 
five foote and halfe in the barrell — marked with an Iron 
on the end with G. H. : two short gunns of four foote and 



582 UNDER THE COMPANY 

an halfe marked in the same manner and with the same 
mark, all three in list cases." " For books purchased for 
himself £1 Us. Odr 

When these goods arrived at Jamestown, George Harri- 
son was sick at his plantation near Martin's Brandon, " yet 
at length he recovered some strength and coming from his 
plantation to James cittie [to see about his goods], there 
was some words of discontent past between him and Mr. 
Richard Stephens [merchant], with some blowes. 8 or 10 
days after Mr Harrison sent a challenge to Stephens to meet 
him in a place, which was made mention of, and there, they 
meeting to-gether it so fell out that Mr Harrison received a 
cut in the leg which did somewhat grieve him and 14 days 
after he departed this life. Being hurt in the field there 
was a crowners quest went upon him. The Doctor and 
Chirgions did open his bodie upon the Juries request and 
they found it very fowle. They did affirm that he could 
not have lived long and that he dyed not of the hurt which 
he had received. For it was but a small cut between the 
garter and his knee." By his will he made Mr. George 
Menefie his " overseer," and his brother, John Harrison, 
his executor. 

Late in April and early in May, the Furtherance and 
two other ships left Virginia for England. Mr. John Poun- 
tis left, on the Furtherance, about April 27, taking with 
him a general letter from the governor and Council in Vir- 
ginia to the company in England ; copies of the seven doc- 
uments ^ prepared by the General Assembly (March 1-15, 
A-G) ; duplicates of several documents previously sent by 
the George, etc. 

John Pory sailed a week later, with the reports from 
the commission in Virginia for the commission in England, 
and the Lady Wyatt returned with him. His reports were 
given in to the commission, and, I suppose, have all been 

^ There were three sets of these Privy Council, sent by Pory. As will 

papers : one, retained for the colony ; be seen hereafter, the Pountis set has 

one, sent to the company by Pountis ; been preserved, 
and the other, " attained unto " for the 



VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER, 1623 — MAY, 1624 583 

lost with the rest. But he carried a letter from Captain 
John Harvey (who remained in Virginia to carry out more 
fully the commission) to Sir Nathaniel Rich, which has 
been preserved. Harvey writes : " I and my friends ap- 
pointed have done our utmost endeavors for searching out 
the truth in answer to those commands which the Lords of 
his Majesty's Privy Counsell were pleased to send unto us : 
and do find the persons here to be more in number and 
provisions of victualls to be more plentiful than we expected, 
after the massacre and so great a mortality both of men 
and cattle. But there is great want of Ammunition, and 
divers solitary plantations too slenderly peopled to avoyd the 
vigilancy of so subtile and nimble an enemie, whereby and 
by the stupid securitie of our nation, it is to be feared that 
in summer time when the corn and weeds are growne high, 
there will be much mischief done, as the Attempts of the 
Indians in these two months of March and April, [a head- 
roll whereof sent to their Lordships^ Mr Pory will shew 
you) do shrewdly prognosticate. Otherwise were the In- 
dians driven of from infesting our people and cattle, as 
with no great forces in 2 or 3 yeares they might be, then 
the Plantation with good Government would undoubtedly 
flourish. [He goes on to tell of the various acts (A-G) 
of the Assembly.] The copies wherof we have attained 
unto for your and their Lordships better information, and 
we doe hope they will come to your hands before the de- 
livery of the Originalls by M"" Pountes, the messenger of 
the General Assembhe. . . . Longer I need not trouble 
your patience through the hand of so understanding and 
well-furnisht a messenger. In this countrye I remain till 
my ship's return from Canada [New England coast], after 
which time, if God keep me alive, having been wintered 
and summered here, you shall know my opinion of the 
place to the full. So desiring to be remembered in all 
humble manner to my most honorable good Lord the Earl 
of Warwick, I rest." 

^ This was delivered to the Privy Council, and has not been found. 



584 UNDER THE COMPANY 

After Pory's departure, it leaked out that lie had " at- 
tained unto " copies o£ the documents (sent by Pountis) 
from the acting secretary, Edward Sharpless. It was a 
question if the commissioners were not entitled to copies 
of these documents ; but for this Sharpless was tried by a 
court on May 20, "and sentenced to stand in the Pillory, 
and there to have his Ears nailed to it, and cut off." And 
he was only " set in the Pillorie, and lost a piece of one of 
his ears, though his sentence was to loose them both." 
The governor and Council afterwards wrote to the company 
to inform them of these things, but the company had been 
discontinued when their letter reached England, and it 
came to the hands of the king, when " his Majestic became 
highlie incensed against them for punishing Sharpless." 

John Sotherne succeeded Sharpless as acting secretary. 

The report of the royal commission in Virginia sent by 
Pory has not been found, but from notes found among the 
papers of Sir Nathaniel Rich it seems that it concluded : 
" Out of all which by the blessing of Almighty God may 
his Majesty's wisdom extract such conclusions as will enable 
him to bring the colony in a few years to the flourishing 
estate of a Kingdom which will yield his Royal Majestic 
both honour and revenue." Under the company the colony 
had come to be regarded as a commonwealth, and in after 
years Virginia was sometimes called " the old common- 
wealth." 



XI 

ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 

HENRY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, TREASURER; NICHOLAS 
FERRAR, DEPUTY-TREASURER 

NovEiviBER 17, 1623, the royal commissioners for Vir- 
ginia issued the following warrant : 

" The right honorable the Lords of his Majesty's Privie 
Council having referred sundry petitions to us concerning 
Virginia for examination whereof we shall have necessary 
use of the wrytings that remayne in a truncke locked up 
under the custody of some one of the Clerkes of the Coun- 
cil — We therefore desyre the now Clerk of the Council 
waiting that the said trunk and key thereof may be de- 
livered to this messenger attending for this busynes, to the 
end we may return answer of the said petitions to their 
honorable Lordships. 

" Hy : Spiller " Fras : Gofton. 

" WiLLM Pitt. '• Rd : Sutton." 

" Henry Bourgehier." 

Among these petitions were those of Molasco the Po- 
lander, the widow Smalley, etc. 

The Virginia Company had virtually refused to surrender 
their charters voluntarily, and the case had been placed in 
the hands of Attorney-General Coventry, who prepared a 
quo warranto against the company, the tenor of which 
was to know by what warrant (authority) they claimed to 
be a company, and to have and use those hberties and 
privileges which are related in the said quo warranto, etc. 
On Tuesday, November 22, Mr. Deputy Ferrar acquainted 



586 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the Virginia court that since Monday last (14th or 21st?) 
himself and divers members of the company had been served 
process out of the King's Bench, by virtue of a quo war- 
ranto ; of which Ferrar presented two copies in court, the 
one in Latin and the other in English. Whereupon the 
company desired that the one in English might be read. 
Which being done, " the Company conceiving and ac- 
knowledging this manner of proceeding to be fair and with 
much favour [?] from his Majesty, desired the defendants 
named in the instrument to take especial care of the busi- 
ness as being the Company's cause, although presented by 
particular names, their charter being called in question, they 
conceive was therefore to be pleaded." " The employing 
of attorneys, etc., to be left to the choice and care of the 
said defendants, and the charge of the suit to be borne 
out of the Company's general stock." The members of 
the company who were willing to surrender the charter 
protested " against contesting with the King about the gov- 
ernment," against this suit, and against this manner of 
meeting the expense thereof. 

On November 29, the Michaelmas quarter court of the 
Virginia Company met. As the quo loarranto course had 
been taken, the majority of the court judged it too late for 
them to act on the former proposition touching the surren- 
dering of their charters, and therefore they took no direct 
vote thereon. But they ordered that the proceedings " of 
the former Courts touching the not surrendering up of their 
charters should be ratify ed and confirmed ; that the grand 
committee, formerly appointed should direct all matters 
requisite and appertaining to the suit ; " and Deputy Nich- 
olas Ferrar was authorized " to summon them at all times 
or such part of them as he should think meet." 

During the debate, Samuel Wrote, Esq., offered to the 
consideration of the company : " First, whether their said 
charters did not contain some things derogating from the 
King's prerogative ; secondly, whether upon a strict exami- 
nation there misfht not be found matter sufficient to shew 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 587 

wherein they had made a forfeiture ; and, lastly, whether, 
if they should stand out in suit with the King, they were 
able, without his gracious favour and assistance, to subsist 
and make good that great action of upholding and ad- 
vancing the plantations." To this it was replied " that 
the Comf)any did not doubt but on a full and right in- 
formation of their proceedings his Majesty would be pleased 
to let them have his gracious favour in more ample manner 
than ever." As a matter of fact their only hope was in 
Parliament, and they were looking forward to that. 

" A motion was likewise made that the Lords of the 
Council might be humbly petitioned by the Company for 
restoring their books and writings," and this was done. 
The election of officers was again put off to the next quar- 
ter court. The letter from the governor and Council in 
Virginia, of June 24, was read. Twenty shares of land, old 
adventure, in Virginia were confirmed by the court to the 
Earl of Southampton ; the same to Sir Edwin Sandys, and 
the same to Mr. John Ferrar. A commission was sealed to 
William Peirce, master of the Return, of 100 tons, bound 
for Virginia. The records give the names of 78 of those 
present. 

On December 1, the Privy Council issued the following 
order : " The Board being made acquainted by Mr Attor- 
ney Generall that whereas a Quo Warranto was issued out 
of the King's Bench against the Company of Virginia for 
the questioning of their charters and thereupon a rule given 
for the said Company to make their answers by Christmas 
Eve next. And that the said Company pretend they can- 
not make perfect answer thereunto without the sight and 
use of all their Books and writings as have been by them 
formerly delivered into the hands of his Majesties Commis- 
sioners appointed for the examination of the business con- 
cerning the Virginia and Somer Islands Companyes. 

" Their Lordships having considered thereof did think 
fit and accordingly order that all the foresaid Books and 
Writings whether remayning in the hands of the Commis- 



588 UNDER THE COMPANY 

sioners or elsewhere shalbe forthwith delivered hy Inven- 
torie unto the said Company." 

Those who were willing to surrender the charters " ac- 
cording to his Majesty's express will and pleasure" were 
not willing that the charge of defending them against the 
quo warranto should be borne by the public stock of the 
company ; they petitioned the Privy Council accordingly. 
On December 18, their petition was read at the board, and 
it was " ordered that all they who are questioned in the 
said Quo Warranto shall make their defence at their own 
particular charge without any help, or dispensing any part 
of the public stock in that case. And that such as are 
willing to surrender shall be discharged from all contribu- 
tion towards the expense of the said suit, both in their per- 
sons and their goods." 

I have not found the record of this quo warranto suit 
in the King's Bench. King James had regarded the colo- 
nial movement with peculiar favor from the first. He was 
regarded (and was evidently proud of being so regarded) 
as the founder of the Eno-lish colonies. He had encour- 
aged those engaged in establishing them by granting them 
his letters patent, and from time to time the especial lands, 
liberties, privileges, and powers which they asked for. But 
the plantation in Virginia had now become an established 
colony, — his fifth kingdom of constantly increasing impor- 
tance. It was not to be supposed that he would longer 
allow this " Nursery of Parliamentary spirits, obnoxious to 
monarchicall government," this republican community rest- 
ing solely on his own warrant, to triumph (if he could pre- 
vent it) in a suit involving his royal prerogative, in the 
capital of his kingdom, to breed dissatisfaction with the 
form of government which obtained in the rest of his royal 
monarchy. The result of the suit between the company 
and the crown was a foregone conclusion from the first. 
Many felt that their personal and property rights and the 
future of the colony were more secure under the crown 
than under'the company which derived its own rights only 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 589 

from the crown. More than two thirds of the company 
had ceased to attend the Vh-ginia courts. But many mem- 
bers of the party prosecuting the suit were men of advanced 
ideas in the matter of self-government, — civil and reli- 
gious liberty, — anxious to put them into execution by 
founding a new nation based thereon ; and they w^ere will- 
ing to defend their rights before " the King's bench," for 
even if they failed to win their suit they would thus plant 
their ideas the more firmly in the public mind, where they 
would continue to grow until they bore fruit. 

Early in January, 1624, a ship arrived from Virginia 
with the news that the English there had poisoned a great 
many Indians, for which they were very much blamed. 
And the Privy Council ordered the company "to seize upon 
all the letters, as well public as private, that come in the 
said ship," and to bring them unopened to the Council 
board. 

During the controversy in the Virginia courts (October 
30) over the surrendering of the company charters, William 
Canning and Thomas Keightley had a hot debate. Can- 
ning " was in favor of giving in the Charter, and not to 
contest with the King about the Government ; " while 
Keightley was said to have stated in the debate " that it 
was neither just nor honest to deliver up the Patent," and 
" that the Court could not either by Law or conscience 
consent to the delivery up of their Patent." The debate 
then became personal, " Kightley foretelling what w^ould be 
the opinion of the Court. Canning told him he was no 
God. K. replied : If I were a God, I would punish you 
for I know what you are. C. then called him Knave, and 
said I will punish you. And on the morrow meeting him 
on the Exchange did there call him Knave, and did both 
thrust and violently strike him." For which Keightley 
brought an action against him for <£500, and had him 
arrested. Canning then appealed to the Privy Council, 
and on December 18, 1623, the Council referred the mat- 
ter to Attorney-General Coventry, who reported thereon 



590 UNDER THE COMPANY 

on January 18, 1624. The witnesses for Canning were 
Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Samuel Argall, Edward Palavicine, 
John Woodall, Rev. William Mease, Captain John Smith, 
and Albertus Molasco. 

Those for Keightley were Nicholas Buckeridge, John 
Sparrow, Edmund Hackett, Thomas Sheppard, John 
Strange, George Clarke, Robert Edwards, John Cuffe, and 
WilHam Watson. Each man's witnesses were of his own 
party, and in their evidence each party contradicted the 
other flatly. Owing to " this strange contradiction of so 
manie witnesses directing their testimonies to one perticuler 
time & place," Coventry was not able to certify to the Privy 
Council " what was the truth touching the pointe." And, 
to add to his confusion, Keightley took particular exception 
to all of Canning's witnesses, save Sir Samuel Argall and 
Edward Palavicine, while Canning took exception to all 
of Keightley' s save Mr. Sheppard. 

In order to get Sandys (who had been confined to his 
house) entirely out of his way, the king, in December, 1623, 
determined to send him as one of a special commission to 
Ireland ; but a ParHament having been decided on, and 
Sandys being elected a member from Kent,^ it was deemed 
unwise not to allow him to remain in England to take his 
seat. Late in 1623 or early in 1624 Sir Thomas Smythe 
was " confirmed governor of the Somers Islands Company 
by the King's letter." This being regarded as " a usurpa- 
tion," the matter was brought before the Virginia court of 
January 24, and after much dispute between Mr. Anthony 
Withers of the Sandys party and Mr. Richard Edwards of 
the Smythe party, " it was by divers held unfit to meddle 
with any new proposition, hut to reserve all to the Parlia- 
ment noio at handr And they at once began to outline 

^ The tenure of villanage, so fre- one to avoid the objection of bondage 

quent in the olden time in other parts to say that his father was born in 

of England, was utterly unknown in Kent." A man of Kent and men of 

Kent, the bodies of all Kentish per- Kent are old English proverbs for a 

sons being of free condition, " inso- free man and brave men, 
much that it is holden sufficient for 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 591 

their line of defense. " A motion was made and referred 
to the consideration of the grand committee, to think on 
some cause for moving his Majesty's commissioners that 
they would please to certify and make some report to the 
Lords of the Council, what they have done in the several 
businesses brought before them by the Virginia Company 
and their opposers, that it may appear to what heads and 
issue they have brought the same, assuring themselves that 
thereby the fairness and justice of the Company's proceed- 
ing's would be manifest to all the world." The ffrand com- 
mittee was also requested to move the commissioners to 
make Sir Thomas Smythe " shew sufficienter cause than by 
his answer he had done for their claims against his ac- 
compts," etc. 

At the preparative court, on February 12, Captain John 
Martin (the differences between the company and him be- 
ing now well composed) received from the court a letter 
commending him to the governor and Council in Virginia 
and requesting them to aid him in his suits against Sir 
George Yeardley. On the previous 29th of December, 
Martin had received a similar indorsation and recommenda- 
tion from the Privy Council. 

At the quarter court, on February 14, the records give 
the names of seventy-six of those who were present ; but 
there were no peers nor knights among them. The court 
granted his quietus est to Deputy Nicholas Ferrar for his 
accounts, and gave him, his heirs, and assigns forever, 
twenty shares of land, old adventure, in Virginia. The re- 
quests of January 2-1 to the grand committee were repeated 
by this court. The commissioners had really made private 
or secret reports to the Privy Council repeatedly. 

Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham returned 
from Spain in October, 1623, having failed to consummate 
the Spanish match. The Parliament which had been sum- 
moned for February 22, 1624, was put off till the 26tli, 
and then postponed for three days (on account of the death 
of the king's old friend and kinsman, the Duke of Lenox), 



592 UNDER THE COMPANY 

when it met. Ambassadors were sent to England from the 
Netherlands, in February, to obtain the cooperation of Eng- 
land in upholding the Dutch West India Company, and 
resisting the fleet of fifty ships which Spain was providing 
for the purpose of crushing the company in its infancy, 
and to consider what aid should be promised from the 
Netherlands in case England went to war with Spain. It 
was proposed to form an Enghsh association for the West 
Indies either in coalition with or independent of the Dutch 
West India Company. It was reported in England that 
the Spaniards would at once attack the Bermudas. Sir 
Benjamin Rudyerd, in his speech before ParUament, " com- 
mended the proposed Association for the West Indies and 
wished to have it regulated and established hy Act of Par- 
liament. He said that what made the King of Spain so 
powerful? It was his Mines in the West Indies, which 
minister fuel to feed his vast ambitious desire of Universall 
Monarchy, and they should endeavour to cut him up at the 
root, and supplant him in the West Indies." 

Bacon's notes for a speech "concerning a war with 
Spain " were prepared at this time. And in his " Considera- 
tions touching a war with Spain," he says that " the great- 
ness of Spain is built upon four pillars. 1. A veteran army. 
2. A profession of the Catholics in all parts. 3. The 
Treasure of the [West] Indies. 4. The strait alliance of 
the House of Austria, which is possessed of the Empire." 

Attorney-General Heath prepared a memorandum for the 
king on the subject, in which he states that " the West 
Indies have been for many years the support of the House 
of Austria & thence hath the fewell been taken that hath 
set this part of Europe on fire." He advises his Majesty 
to interpose himself openly or underhand. " The first of 
these ways seemeth to be less safe, both because the times 
are not so seasonable for great undertakings and a stander 
by cannot well judge howe your Majesty's affaires stand in 
conjuncture with Spain." " The second way " was in line 
with the diplomacy of the time. " If some of experience 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 593 

& quality & well fitted for such an enterprise, quasi aliud 
agentes will either enterprise somewhat o£ themselves — or 
else shall offer themselves to join with the Hollanders, to 
join their forces & take their fortunes with them. If it 
take not success it is done of their own heads — it is but 
the attempt of private gentlemen — the state suffers no loss 
— no disreputation. If it take success, they are your sub- 
jects — they do it for your service — they will lay all at 
your Majesty's feet and interest your Majesty therein. So 
may you share with the Hollanders your neighbours in their 
treasure & trade," etc. This same idea had obtained in 
the colonial movement. 

James I. declared war against Spain on March 20. The 
Earl of Southampton, the treasurer of the Virginia Com- 
pany, was released from confinement, and received an ap- 
pointment as colonel (of troops to be sent [abroad] to Hol- 
land) prior to April 18, and was commissioned before May 
17. On May 1, ten of the most distinguished soldiers of 
the period were appointed by James I. as his council of 
war, namely : Oliver Lord Viscount Grandison,* George 
Lord Carew,^ Fulke Lord Brooke, Arthur Lord Chichester,* 
Sir Edward Conway, Sir Edward Cecil, Sir Horace Vere, 
Sir Robert Mansell, Sir John Ogle, and Sir Thomas Button. 

Edward Nicholas wrote from London, on March 22, to 
John Nicholas, " that a ship had recently arrived from Vir- 
ginia, which reported the welfare of the people, but that 
they were still at enmity with the Natives." 

From March 28 to April 30 inclusive Parliament was 
not in session. 

John Boyle, Richard Brewster, Henry Wentworth, Wil- 
liam Perry, William Best, and other planters lately come 
from Virginia, presented a petition to the king in behalf 
of themselves " and others the poor planters in Virginia," 
asking him for the encouragement of the planters, and 

^ Grandison, Carew, and Chiches- formulating bis proposed royal gov- 
ter composed the committee formerly ernment for Virginia, 
selected by James I. to aid him in 



594 UNDER THE COMPANY 

because of the recent calamities, to excuse them from pay- 
ing custom and import dues on their tobacco. Among 
their reasons why this should be done, they give " the 
many impositions and levies now made and laid upon them 
for the support of the Company in England. From whence 
heretofore they were wont to receive relief." 

On April 18, the king referred this petition to the lord 
treasurer and the chancellor of the exchequer, and on the 
24:th they referred it to the Virginia Company for their 
answer. On the 26th the planters deHvered the petition 
to Deputy Nicholas Ferrar. He asked them to set down 
their grievances in writing. He had another conference 
with them the next day, and at the Virginia court of May 4 
the petition was referred to the court for answer. It was 
fully reviewed, and "the unjustness of the complaint of 
the planters did much grieve the Company, that where 
they deserved thanks for their charity they should be com- 
plained of for oppression." One of the specific charges of 
the planters was that the provisions sent over the last year 
for their relief by his Majesty's command had been sold 
to them at excessive rates. The court denied this. 

About ninety were present at this court, including 
three peers (Southampton, Cavendish, and Paget) and four 
knights (Edwin Sandys, John Danvers, Lawrence Hyde, 
and John Trevor). The papers in the breach of promise 
suit of Pooley vs. Jordan were submitted to the court, and, 
being read, Mr. Purchas was entreated to confer with some 
civilians about it, and advise what answer was fit to be 
returned in such a case. 

At the preparative court of May 6, " Sydrac Soan (and 
Martha his sister) brother to Joseph Soan, deceased claimed 
that his said brother had paid Sir Thomas Smith an adven- 
ture of £37. 10^" "Garret Weston brother to Francis 
Weston " is mentioned as holding interests in Virginia. 

At the quarter court, on May 8, " the three shares that 
Captain John Bernard drew in his life time in Martin's 
Hundred, as they are figured out in ye generall Mapp of 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 595 

that societie,'^ were passed to others as requested by Mr. 
Caswell. Not one of the public or private maps which were 
preserved in "the Company's chests of evidences" has been 
found. 

The Virginia court of January 24 had resolved " to 
reserve all to the Parliament now at hand." There were 
no Virginia courts held between February 14 and May 4, 
owing to " this busy time of Parliament ; " ^ but " those 
who call themselves the Virginia Company " were not idle. 
They were laying their groundwork and preparing their 
case for submission to the court, for which they had re- 
served all. Sir Edwin Sandys and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar 
were both members of Parliament, and the rising stars, 
Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham, had no more 
faithful assistants in their controversies arising out of " the 
Spanish Match " than they were. On April 25, the charges 
against the lord treasurer were laid before the peers by 
Coke and Sandys. On May 3, a petition from Bargrave 
and others against Sir Thomas Smythe was presented to 
" the Grand Committee for grievances," of which Sandys 
was a member. On May 4, the petition that the Council 
of Virginia had drawn up to be presented " to the Honor- 
able House of Commons assembled in Parliament" was 
read by Mr. Deputy Ferrar to the Virginia court, and, 
after some debate, indorsed. " And the court entreated 
Mr. Deputy and those other of the Council that are also 
members of the Honorable House of Parliament would 
please, in the Company's name, to present the said petition 
to the House of Commons and prosecute the matters therein 
contained with all expedition." 

This petition — after reciting the objects for " establish- 
ing the first plantation of the reformed religion in Amer- 
ica," and showing the many advantages ^ arising and likely 

^ During this time the George, with ^ Among these was " the inestima- 

the list of living, in Virginia, Febru- ble advantage that would be gained to 

ary, 1624, the general letters of Feb- this State of England in time of war, 

ruary 8 and 12, the planters, etc., ar- both for the easy assaulting of the 

rived from Virginia. Spaniard's West Indies from those 



596 UNDER THE COMPANY 

to arise from the colony — states that disorders have arisen 
by the evil practice of some, "increased and upheld by 
strong hand, as doth threaten ruin and destruction to this 
excellent work of God, and His Majesty, if remedies be not 
timely appHed." And, therefore, as the petitioners were 
not able " to be their own physicians without higher assist- 
ance," and " for the discharge of the trust reposed in 
them, they now presented to this present Parliament this 
child of the Kingdom [Virginia], exposed as in the wil- 
derness to extreme danger and as it were fainting and 
labouring for life. And they pray that the House would 
hear from such of the Virginia Council as are members of 
the House, the grievances [which they state ^ had either 
their original or strength from the now Lord Treasurer out 
of his private and most unjust ends '] of the Colony and 
Company, and grant them redress." 

The petition was presented to the House of Commons 
on the morning of May 6, 1624, by Mr. Deputy Ferrar. 
After some opposition a committee was appointed to hear 
the case " in the Star-chamber upon the next Wednesday 
[May 8] in the afternoon, where all of the Company that 
are members of ParHament are allowed free speech at ye 
Committee but not deciding voyces." 

In the preparative Virginia court held that afternoon, 
Mr. Ferrar reported this state of the petition to the court. 
Steps were then taken for the election of officers by the fol- 
lowing quarter court ; and a contribution was made toward 
the expense of the education of an Indian boy brought 
from Virginia by Mr. WiUiam Perry. 

At the quarter court, May 8, there were over 100 present, 
but only 79 voted. The Earl of Southampton and Mr. 
Nicholas Ferrar were reelected as treasurer and deputy 
respectively. The usual number of auditors, committees, 
and other officers were chosen. As the term of Sir Francis 

parts, aud for the relieving of all attaining (at least for the publick of 

ships and men-of-war that should go their country and prosperity') a most 

on reprisals," etc. beneficial retribution for all their ex- 

The petitioners did not doubt " of peuse and pains." 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 597 

Wyatt would expire in the following November, he was 
now reelected to serve as governor in Virginia for three 
years longer. 

The court then took up the matter of the general narra- 
tion of their grievances which was to be made that after- 
noon before the committee of the lower house of Parlia- 
ment (the Commons). These were divided under four 
heads : — 

I. " The matter of Tobacco and all the grievances 
therein." To be presented to the committee by Mr. 
Deputy Ferrar, M. P. for Lymington. 

II. " The business of the Contract for the sole importing 
of Tobacco." By Sir Edwin Sandys, M. P. for Kent. 

ni. " The proceedings of the Commissioners." By Lord 
Cavendish, M. P. for Derby. 

IV. " The passages since." By Sir John Danvers, M. 
P. for Newport. 

That afternoon they made their relations before the com- 
mittee. " They layd the great load upon the Lord Trea- 
surer [Cranfield] : charged the Commissioners, appointed 
by the King to hear and report the cause, with extreme 
partiality — and brought charges against Sir Nathaniel 
Rich [M. P. for Harwich]. They spared not the Count of 
Gondomar and his successors, who they said had in charge 
to use their uttermost endeavour for the destruction of the 
said Company and their plantation." The whole afternoon 
was taken up in reading their relations, and the matter 
was to come up for farther consideration on the next day. 

May 9, before the case was taken up, " the Speaker of 
the House of Commons delivered and read a letter which 
he had received from the King, concerning the Virginia 
Petition whereupon by general resolution it was with 
drawn." 

The letter was written the day before at Windsor, " sig- 
nifying to our House of Commons not to trouble them- 
selves with this petition as their doing so could produce 
nothing but a further increase Schisme and factions in the 



598 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Company, which were in settlement by himself and his 
Privy Council." ^ " As for those businesses of Virginia 
and the Barmudoes, ourself have taken them to heart, and 
will make it our own work to settle the quiet, and wellfare 
of the plantations, and will be ready to do anything that 
may be for the real benefit and advancement of them. This 
we thought good to intimate to our House of Commons, 
not out of favour respect, or mediation of any party, but 
of our own Princely love, and regard to our House of Com- 
mons, And we earnestly desire to remove all occasion, that 
might disturb the peace of it, or hinder you from your 
more great, and weighty occasions, and assure ourself our 
House of Commons will take in good part and correspond 
with us herein, as they have done in all things else during 
this Session." 

This incident was viewed differently by parties looking 
from different standpoints. Sir Isaac Wake wrote, " our 
schisme caused by ye Virginians is quieted with his Majes- 
ties letter, which was received with an universal api^lause'^ 

Sir Francis Nethersole says : " This was assented to hy 
a general silence, but not without some soft mutterings 
that by this meanes and example my Lord Treasurer's 
[Cranfield] business or any other might be taken out of 
the Parliament." John Chamberlain wrote to Carleton : 
" The King wrote a letter yesterday to the lower house, to 
rid them of a thornie business touching Virginia and the 
Summer Islands which was like enough to have bred much 
faction and distraction among them, being followed on both 
sides with much eagerness and animositie ; which to pre- 
vent the King hath resumed and reserved the whole cause 
to his own hearing, which is the best course could have 
been taken, and no doubt most pleasing to the major part." 

From the first all colonial matters of importance had to 
be submitted to the Privy Council for their decision, and 
all along that Council had had a general supervision over 
everything pertaining to the colonies; therefore the Sandys 

1 See Peckarcl's Ferrar, p. 152. 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 599 

party must have known that their cause was then ahnost 
hopeless. Their appeal to the Commons was really an 
appeal to the wrong court, but there was no other hope 
for the popular charters and form of government. The 
House itseK, in now yielding to the king, tacitly admitted 
that " his colonies were the demesnes of the Crown lying 
beyond the jurisdiction of the State." 

The Sandys party had managed their case as well as they 
could, using as levers the case of Prince Charles and Buck- 
ingham against the lord treasurer, the evil influence of Gon- 
domar, etc. ; but as their suit was really against the crown, 
and their hopes had been dependent on the Commons, they 
must have now felt that their cause was hopeless ; yet 
they were not willing to surrender their charters volun- 
tarily. They were contending for a principle and for the 
future. They were impressing their plans on the present 
for the good of their posterity. 

The Cape Cod fishery case had been considered by this 
Parliament during the first session on March 5, 6, 9, 25, 26, 
and 27, and second session May 3, 13, 14, 29, 30 ; June 
1, 3, and 4. The act which .finally passed the House of 
Commons was sent up to the House of Lords ; but the 
Lords' journal shows no further proceedings thereon, and 
the crown continued to control the matter. Parliament 
sat for the last time on June 7, and was then prorogued 
from time to time until the death of James I. 

On May 30, Solicitor-General Heath wrote to Sir Robert 
Harley, '^ requesting him to take opinions on a Bill to be 
proposed in Parliament for prohibiting the import of Span- 
ish tobacco, by which .£100,000 a year is lost to the King- 
dom. It can be done without breach of the Treaty, the 
King has promised it to the Virginia Company, and it will 
increase his revenue £50,000 per annum." On June 3, 
the House of Commons authorized Sir Edwin Sandys and 
Mr. Nicholas Ferrar to draw a bill against the importation 
of Spanish tobacco. The price of Virginia tobacco was 
falling and steps were being taken to protect it. Sir Peter 



600 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Courteen wrote to John Harrison from Middelbargh, tlie 
capital of Zealand, " about the sale of Virginia tobacco, 
which is at as low a stand as ever was and like to come 
lower. Desires Harrison to procure patent upon some of 
the Company's name for Capt. John Powell to have leave 
to trade into the plantation of Virginia." Harrison re- 
plied, on June 26, that he had moved the Virginia Com- 
pany in the matter, but could not " prevail, in regard they 
are afraid that Capt. Powell should go to the West Indies." 

About June 12, three ships returned from Virginia after 
a very speedy passage, bringing " the Lady Wyatt, great 
with child ; " the documents sent by the hands of Mr. 
John Pountis, from the General Assembly in Virginia to 
the company; and the reports sent by the hands of Mr. 
John Pory, from the commission in Virginia to the com- 
missioners in England. 

At the preparative court on June 17, Mr. Deputy Nicholas 
Ferrar acquainted the company with the good news brought 
from Virginia by these ships, and the court took steps for 
supplying Sir Francis Wyatt and Mr. George Sandys with 
tenants, etc. 

The deputy also acquainted the court that although the 
general business of the company preferred in their peti- 
tion had not proceeded in Parliament, yet the particular 
of tobacco by the exceeding great care and wisdom of Sir 
Edwin Sandys, assisted by the Lord Cavendish and other 
very worthy members of the company, had a very happy 
issue. Steps were to be taken by the company to second 
the House in the matter of tobacco ; but the House did not 
meet again. Wednesday, June 19, was the Trinity quarter 
court day of the Virginia Company ; but if the company 
met — or ever met in court again — I have no record of 
the meeting. 

Mr. John Pountis had died on the voyage just off the 
coast of England (his will was recorded June 28), and on 
June 24, Mr. Chancellor Weston wrote to Sir Thomas 
"Merrie, clerk of the Green Cloth (the cousin and executor 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 — JUNE, 1624 601 

of Pountis), as follows : " It is not unknown that at the 
death of your Cousin who was imployed in the Virginia 
business, there were remayning in his hands divers Letters 
and papers of importance concerning those affairs which 
may be verie useful and therefore fit to be preserved in 
safety. And because his Majestic is informed that those 
papers are either in your custodie or where you may have 
the command of them. His pleasure and Commandement 
is that such of these papers as remayne with you — you 
keep safely and carefully against such time as use may be 
made of them. And if you know where anie of them are 
in the Custodie of others you are to call for them and cause 
them to be put in like safetie that none of them are want- 
ing; when there shalbe occasion to use them. This is the 
charge Sir Thomas Merrie." 

The seven original documents, together with sundry other 
papers (copies of those sent by the George, etc.), were thus 
preserved by "Sir Thomas Merrie," and have since, passed 
into the hands of the state ; but curiously enough they 
have become badly scattered in the state paper office (Lon- 
don). The Answers to Johnson (A) and Butler (B) are on 
file under February, 1623 ; while the Petition to the King 
(C) and Brief Declaration (E) are placed under July, 1624, 
thus makingr- seventeen months' difference in the dates of 
the documents, when really there was not seventeen days. 
I have found no reply to any of these documents (A — G), 
unless the reports (1625) of the royal commission in Vir- 
ginia, known as " Harvey's reports," be so considered. 
Circumstances soon made any other reply unnecessary. 

John Pory, soon after his arrival, probably as early as 
June 13, gave in the reports (1624) of the royal commis- 
sioners in Virginia, and the attested copies, which they had 
"attained unto," of the Assembly papers (A — G) to the 
Privy Council and the royal commissioners in England. 
During Trinity Term the quo warranto came up in the 
court of the King's Bench by which " the Virginia Patent 
was overthrown," on June 26, 1624, the last day of the 



602 UNDER THE COMPANY 

term. Wodenoth says, in regard to these quo loarranto 
proceedings : " Notwithstanding it was more than presumed 
by some that the most rightf ull contest in a legal way would 
be fruitless, yet the company by vote and order thereupon 
entertained counsell of the best lawyers they could get and 
resolved to spend the remaining part of their stock and cash 
to plead their cause to a due issue ; when also some good 
number of unknown persons sent in money, plate, and jewels 
to animate and assist so just a defence as this Company's 
right and interest ; whilst many could not but conceive and 
fear the example might be most pernicious in other cases.^ 
Yet, nevertheless, a judgment was declared by the Lord 
Chief Justice Ley against the company and their charter 
only upon a failure or mistake in pleading, which destroyed 
the hopes of all that looked in a just and righteous way 
towards that pious and public work of plantations." James 
I. had had the matter decided to suit himself and the royal 
party. The decision was more satisfactory to the Smythe 
party than the Sandys party, but it was regardless of the 
rights of either party in the company under the popular 
charters. 

John Ferrar ^ gives a very brief and unsatisfactory ac- 
count of the proceeding in the quo warranto case, and of 
Attorney-General Coventry's " great plea " (which he be- 
littles) upon which sentence was given. " That the Patent, 
or Charter of the company of English merchants trading to 
Virginia, and pretending to exercise a power and authority 
over his Majesty's good subjects there, should be thence- 
forth null and void." 

Ferrar says, " The king was at the bottom of this whole 
proceeding, which from beginning to end was a despotic 
violation of honour and of justice ; which proved him to 
be a man void of every laudable principle of action ; a man 
who in all his exertions made himself the scorn of those 
who were not in his power, and the detestation of those who 
were ; a man whose head was indeed encircled with the 

1 See Nethersole's letter on p. 598. ^ Packard's Ferrar, pp. 144-147. 



ENGLAND, NOVEMBER, 1623 -JUNE, 1624 603 

Regal Diadem, but never surely was Head more unworthy 
or unfit to wear it." To this Peckard has added in a note, 
" He became the public jest, and object of ridicule to all 
the states of Europe." 

Ferrar and Peckard evidently had a very different opin- 
ion of the king from that held by Purchas,^ Crashawe, and 
others. Each side went to extremes. James I. was a human 
being, and it was as natural for him to wish to resume the 
government as it was for the company officials to wish to 
retain it. I have not been able to find the records of the 
court of the King's Bench at this time, and therefore I am 
not able to give the authentic particulars of the case ; but 
although the charter was condemned by Chief Justice Ley, 
and although the king" resumed the government," it seems 
that the charter was not really vacated upon the records 
of the Office of the Rolls, and owing to the early death of 
James I. it is certain that the new charter, which was in- 
tended to supersede it, was not issued. The judgment of 
the King's Bench against the charter was not entered until 
about 1632, when it was done at the instance of Lord 
Baltimore ; but in the beginning of the Parliament of 1640, 
the opponents to Baltimore's patent for Maryland took out 
the Virginia patent again under the Broad Seal of Eng- 
land, and thus it really continued, and continues, as the 
basis of our rio:hts to our lands and our laws. A manifest 
destiny has shaped our end from the first. 



A Note on the Records of the Virginia Company of 

London. 

John Ferrar says that " about a year before the dissolu- 
tion of the Company [June, 1623 ?], Mr Nicholas Ferrar 
[suspecting that the company records would finally be con- 
cealed or destroyed] procured an expert clerk fairly to copy 

1 " He is beyond comparison com- Princes of this Realme ... a Salo- 
pared with others, a meere transcend- mon indeed." Purchas his Pilgrimes, 
ent ; beyond all his Predecessors, vol. iv., p. 1971. 



604 UNDER THE COMPANY 

out all the court books, and all other writings belonging 
to them, and caused them all to be carefully collated with 
the originals, and afterward attested upon oath by the 
examiners to be true copies. The transcribing of which 
cost him out of his own pocket above .£50 : but this he 
thought one of the best services he could do the company." 
He afterwards carried them to their late worthy governor 
the Earl of Southampton, who accepted them as a rich 
treasure, being evidences that concerned his honor.^ Mr. 
Ferrar does not give the date of presentation, but from 
other sources it seems that it must have been between June 
29 and July 6, 1624. 

Two of these books (copied for Ferrar) are now in the 
library of Congress. They contain the acts of the general 
courts, as mentioned on page 338 ; but the records of the 
court of May 30, 1620, and of the beginning of the quarter 
court of June 1, 1622, are wanting. The one, from May 8, 
1619, to July 13, 1622, and attested on February 7, 1624, 
contains 354 pages and about 200,000 words. The other, 
from July 27, 1622, to June 17, 1624, and attested on June 
29, 1624, contains 387 pages and about 230,000 words. 

These are not copies of " all the court books and all other 
writings " belonging to the company. The copying of them 
probably cost less than £25 ; and if all records were trans- 
scribed there still remains a hope that the rest of these 
copies may yet be found somewhere. Those which have 
been preserved are of the greatest historic value, and those 
which are still missing were evidently of equal value. 

1 Peckard's Ferrar, pp. 153-156, and 166. 



XII 

VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 
SIR FBANCIS WYATT, GOVERN OB 

The Virginia land patent books from June, 1624 (with 
some references to earlier dates), to the present time, have 
been preserved. Their value to the historian of Virginia 
cannot be overestimated. The grants to adventurers and 
planters during the formative period prior to 1619 had 
been issued under the charters of 1609 and 1612, and the 
orders, etc., as printed in " Nova Britannia ; " but they were 
not many, for the country itself was then only in chrysalis, 
developing golden opportunities for the future. The grants 
under the company, which since 1619 had been issued 
mainly under the rules of " the Great Charter," ended in 
February, 1625. Owing to the alteration of the form of 
government, the end of the company, the death of James 
I., and the confusions incidental to these things, it was 
nearly two years before the issuing of land grants under the 
crown began, and then they were continued on very nearly 
the same lines as under the company ; but the title was 
more directly from the crown .^ 

1 The form of a land grant under Courte, by the Treasurer, Counseil and 

"the Great Charter," 1619-1625, in- Coinpauy of Adventurers and Planters 

elusive : — for this Southerne Colony of Virginia 

" By the Governor and Captaine Gen- (according to the authority granted 

eral of Virginia. — them by his Majestie under his great 

"To all to whom these presents Scale) and by them dated at London the 

shall come, greeting in our Lord God eighteenth [O. S.] day of November 

everlasting. Knowe ye that I * 1618 and directed to myself and the 

Knight, Governor and Captaine Gene- Council of Estate here resident doe 

rail of Virginia by virtue of the Great with the approbation and consent of 

Charter of Orders and lawes concluded the same Counseil, who are joined in 

on in a great and Generall Quarter commission with mee give and graunt 

* The name of the governor. 



606 



UNDER THE COMPANY 



The thirty-second article, in the laws sent to England by 
Pountis was : " That at the beginning of July next the 
inhabitants of every corporation shall fall upon their ad- 
joyning Salvages, as we did the last year — Those that 



to * liis first generall divi- 

dent to be augmented and doubled by 
the company to him his said heires etc, 
when he or they shall once sufficiently 
have planted and peopled the same 

. . . acres of land situate f 

To have and hold the said . . . with 
the appurtenances, and with his due 
share of all mines and mineralls there- 
in contained, and with all priviledges 
of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, 
and others — within the precincts and 
upon the borders of the same land to 
the sole and proper use, benefit and 
behoof of him the said for- 
ever. In as large and ample manner 
to all intents and purposes as is ex- 
pressed in the said Great Charter, or 
by consequence may justly be collected 
out of the same or out of his Majesties 
Letters Patents whereon it is grounded. 

" Yeilding and paying to the said 
Treasurer, Counsiel and Company and 
to their successours forever. Yearly at 
the feast of St Michaell the Archangel, 
for every fiftie acres of his said divi- 
dend tire free rent of one shilling. . . . 

" In witness whereof I have to these 
presents sett my hande and the great 
Seale of the Colony. Given at . . . 
the . . . day of ... in the yeares of 
the raigne of our Soveraigne . . . viz. 
of England, etc. the ... of Scotland, 
the . . . and in the . . . year of this 
plantation." 

The following is the general form 
of a land grant under the Crown, 1627- 
1775 : — 



" X by the Grace of God of 

Great Britain, France, and Ireland 
King Defender of the Faith, ^c. 

" To ALL TO WHOM these Presents 
shall come Greeting — Know ye that 

for divers good causes § 

With all woods underwoods swamps, 
marshes, Lowgrounds, meadows, Feed- 
ings &e. his due share of all veins, 
mines and Quarries as well discovered 
as not discovered within the bounds 
aforesaid and being part of the said 
. . . acres of Land, and the Rivers, 
Waters and water courses therein con- 
tained together with the Privileges of 
Hunting, Hawking, Fishing Fowling 
and all other Profits Comodities and 
Hereditaments whatsoever to the same 
or any part thereof belonging or in 
anywise appertaining. To have hold 

Possess and Enjoy the said || 

To be held of us our Heirs and suc- 
cessors as of our Mannor of East 
Greenioich in the County of Kent in Free 
and common soccage and not in Capite 
or hy Knights service.*^ 

" Yielding and Paying unto us 
our Heirs and successors for every 
fifty acres of Land and so proportion- 
ably for a lesser or greater Quantity 
than fifty acres the Fee Rent of one 
shilling yearly to be paid upon the 
Feast of Saint Michael the Arch An- 
gel. . . . 

"Witness our Trusty and welbe- 
loved governor and com- 
mander in chief of our said Colony, 
&c." 



* Name of grantee, etc., and considerations. 

t Bounds of grant. 

% The name of the sovereign. 

§ Given here the considerations, name of grantee, bounds of grant. 

II Premises, etc. 

IT The letters patents to the company conveyed the same title. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 607 

shall be hurte upon service to be cured at the publique 
charge ; in case any be lamed to be maintained by the 
country according to his person and quality," — that is, to 
be pensioned. 

These midsummer wars were for the purpose of starving 
out the Indians by destroying their crops at too late a day 
for replantation. Governor Wyatt in person commanded 
an expedition which is thus described in their general 
letter of December 12, 1624 : " It hath pleased God this 
year to give us a great victory over the Otiotan and the 
Pamunkeys, with their Confederates, by a handfull being 
in all not above 60 fiohtina" men — whereof 24 were em- 
ployed only in the cutting down of Corne. Yet the 
Indians shewed what they could do, having mainteyned 
fight two days to-gether ; and much thereof in the open 
field. The young men being beaten up by the elder, 
many slain, and as much corn cut down as by the estima- 
tion of men of good judgment was sufficient to have sus- 
tained four thousand men for a twelvemonth ; Who were 
[finally] so discouraged, that they gave over fighting, and 
dismayed stood most ruefully looking on whilst their corn 
was beino" cut down. And had we been well furnished 
with powder, the governor would have proceeded further 
to Matepony river, by which he had hazarded the starving 
of all those nations. 

" In this expedition sixteen of the English were hurte 
our first and second day, whereby nine of the best shot 
were made unserviceable for that time, yet never a man 
slain ; nor none miscarried of those hurtes ; since when 
they have not greatly troubled us, nor interrupted our 
labours. 

" The Indians were never known to shew so great reso- 
lution, either encouraged by the paucitie of ours, or their 
more great numbers, there being of the Pamunkeys eight 
hundred bowmen besides divers nations that came to assist 
them. Fighting not only for safeguards of their houses 
and such a huge quantity of corn, but for their expecta- 



QQS UNDER THE COMPANY 

tions with tlie rest of tlie Salvages which we now hope they 
have lost. That depending much upon the success of the 
action, ye Pamunkies having made great brag of what they 
would do among ye northern nations ; of whom the King 
of Potaxone sent an Indian unto us expresslie to be an eye 
witness of the event. 

" If our store of powder had been answerable to our 
intentions & readines we had gone upon our neighbouring 
Indians, although we understand that they have quitted 
their former Plantations by the harsh visits which they 
received from us the former Summer. And as we conceave 
did much rely upon reHef from the Pamunkeys, who there- 
fore planted the greater quantitie. . . . 

" This summer God be thanked, the Colony hath very 
well stood to health, which assureth us that the mortalitie 
of former years is to be imputed to other accidents." 

The chief reason for the comparatively low death rate of 
the summer of 1624 was the small number of newcomers 
to go through the seasoning. 

After the return from the wars. Governor Wyatt granted 
a good deal of land to various patentees, and many lots in 
Jamestown, and " the New-towne in James Citty," all of 
which were properly surveyed and laid ofP by William Clay- 
borne. " Capt John Harvey Esquire," one of the commis- 
sioners, was granted G^ acres of land in " the New Town," 
near the lots of Captain Ralph Hamor of the Council, 
George Menefie, Richard Stephens, and John Chew, mer- 
chants. 

During Harvey's (or Harvie's) stay in the colony he 
devoted himself to obtaining answers to several questions 
given him to that purpose. Of these, one was : " What 
was the cause of the Massacre, and who first taught the 
Indians the use of Fire Arms ? " I have not the details of 
these examinations ; but as to this question Mr. Stith ^ says 
" that in a Court held the 11*^ of November, 1624, Robert 
Poole and Edward Grindon, gentlemen, ancient planters 

' History of Virginia, p. 142. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 609 

and Inhabitants of the country, appear, and declare, upon 
oath, their Knowledge of the matter. Their depositions 
entirely clear Mr. Yeardley, and shew him to have been 
very cautious and careful in that point ; and they throw 
the whole blame upon Captain Smith, Sir Thomas Dale, 
and some other inferior officers and private persons." 

This fall the colonists were in good spirits after so many 
disasters. " And among so many of his benefits, God had 
sent them a plentifull harvest of corne, and the indus- 
trious were well stored with other provisions so great that 
excepting the number of men the colony hath worne out 
the Scarrs of the Massacre. An if in anything it come 
short, in many things it exceedeth the former conditions."^ 

In the summer of 1624, Captain John Martin arrived in 
Virginia in the Swan, of 30 tons, via New England, with 
Mr. Thomas Weston, the owner of the pinnace, and others. 
This Mr. Weston had been interested in the Mayflower 
emigrants, and was associated with Mr. John Pierce in his 
patent in Virginia, and afterwards in the first Plymouth 
patent ; his ships had been trading with Virginia since 
1621, a-id he afterwards owned land in Virginia and Mary- 
land. Captain Martin brought with him the order of the 
Privy Council in England of December 29, 1623, recom- 
mending him to the " more than ordinary respect " of the 
governor and Council in Virginia ; and also the letter of 
the earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, Lords Cavendish 
and Paget ; Sirs Robert Killegrew, John Danvers, and 
Humphrey May ; Mr. John White, the lawyer, and Mr. 
Nicholas Ferrar, the deputy, which had been indorsed by 
the Virginia court in England of February 12, 1624, espe- 
cially commending to the care of the governor and Council 
in Virginia a suit " for divers wrongs " which Martin pro- 
posed bringing against Sir George Yeardley in Vii-ginia. 
The governor and Council in their general letter of De- 
cember 12, 1624, acknowledged the receipt of the aforesaid 
order and letter ; evidently resented them, and thought 

^ Extract from general letter. 



610 UNDER THE COMPANY 

that Martin^ had little deserved them at their hands; but, 
notwithstanding, they promised their best assistance to the 
accommodation of his business. In the letter they urge 
the company to send them some powder as soon as possible, 
and conclude : — 

"Thus humbly desiring your former favours and fer- 
vency in the support of this action and the settinge of our 
Estate, much shaken by rumours, which have bred a gen- 
erall irresolution amonge us, we humbly take our leaves 
and remain 

Att your Commands. 

" Francis Wyatt. 

" Francis West. " George Yeardley. 

" George Sandys. " John Pott. 

" Roger Smyth. " Raphe Hamor." 

" Symon Tuchin master of the Due Return, having been 
* banished out of Ireland,' was reported as strongly affected 
to Popery, and the Governor and Council in Virginia sent 
him as a prisoner (in January, 1625) to the Company in 
England, to take such order therein as shall seem best to 
their graver judgments, as he was regarded as a person 
dangerous to the Colony in case he should become Pylott 
to a forreign Enemy." 

On February 14, the governor and Council in Virginia 
wrote a letter to the Earl of Southampton and others in 
England, inclosing certain depositions which had been 
taken in the cases of Captain John Martin against Sir 
George Yeardley, as also for the cattle in question between 
Martin and Captain John Bargrave, etc. 

When Captain John Harvey left Virginia in February or 
March, 1625, he carried with him reports from the planta- 
tions, and replies to sundry questions, which give a fairly 
approximate idea as to the condition of the colony. The 
questions were : — 

^ On his arrival in Virginia lie had instituted a suit of " nine demands " 
against Sir George Yeardley and others. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 611 

" 1. How many several plantations there be — Public 
and Private ? " The replies to this were not sufficiently 
complete, and the Privy Council repeated the question on 
May 25, 1625. 

" 2. What people men weomen and children be in each 
Plantation ? 3. What houses ? 4. What Cattle, etc. ? 5. 
What corn, etc.? 6. What fortifications? 7. What 
arms, etc. ? 8. What boats, etc. ? " 

And the following general questions, to which Harvey 
made the foUowino; answers : — 

" 9. What2^resent relation the State of the Colony hath to 
England ? Theire generall desire is to be immediately un- 
der the government and protection of his Majestie. Onlie 
some fewe imployed by the late Company feare by the 
change of government theire losse of imployment and so 
desire to be still under the Company. 

" 10. What present relation the State of the Colony 
hath to the Salvages ? They are ingaged in a mortall 
warre and fleshed in each others bloud, of which the 
Causes have been the late massacre on the Salvages parte, 
and on the parte of the Englishe a later attempt of poyson- 
ing Opochancano and others. I conceive that by the dis- 
persion of the Plantations the Savage hath the advantage 
in this warre, and that by theire suddaine assaultes They 
do us more harm than we do them by our set voyages. 

" 11. Remedies against the daimger from the savages 
and meanes to advance the Plantation f " In his reply, 
Harvey adopts, as his advice, many ideas which had been 
previously expressed by Sir Thomas Dale and others, as 
well as the present ideas of the king. He says : " For the 
future advancement of the Plantation there must be an 
established form of government settled amoungst them 
there, and another here in England ; both managed by 
such men as may be subject & answerable in their- perticu- 
lar persons for all their proceedinges to his 3Iajestie and 
the Lords of his Majesties Privy Council.'' He does not 
make a favorable report of the management since May, 



612 UNDER THE COMPANY 

1619. He says, " Of all the publique stocke which within 
these last six yeares hath been disbursed there remains no 
pubHque work, as guest house, bridge, store-house, muni- 
tion-house, pubUque granary, fortification. Church or the 
like. The whole remainder being a few tenants at halves 
whose times are near expired." He concludes, " There is 
not a countrey in the same climate throughout the whole 
world that gives better hopes of benefit than Virginia if it 
be well undertaken and diligently followed." 

Less than 1100 emigrants were living in Virginia in Feb- 
ruary, 1624. About fifteen ships, which left England with 
about 260 emigrants, arrived in Virginia between that date 
and February, 1625, at which time 1095 English emigrants 
were living in the colony. Less than 266 having died en 
route and in the colony during the previous twelve months, 
the following is an approximately fair statement : There 
were living in Virginia, in November, 1619, about 900 Eng- 
lish, of whom about one half were acclimated. There were 
sent to Virginia, during 1619-1624, about 4894 emigrants. 
Of these forty-five, in the Garland, went to the Bermudas 
and remained there, and 100, in the Mayflower, went to 
North Virginia and remained there, the rest, being 4749, 
either reached Virginia or died en route, which, with the 
900 of November, 1619, make a total of 5649, of whom only 
1095 were then living in Virginia ; thus showing that be- 
tween November, 1619, and February, 1625, there had died 
en route or in Virginia, or had returned to England, 4554. 
It is doubtful if as many as 154 returned to remain in 
England. Of the living, over 300 came in before Novem- 
ber, 1619. Of 107 children born in Virginia, the father, 
or mother, or both father and mother, of over eighty came 
before November, 1619. About 900 Virginians had be- 
come acclimated and were in condition to " be fruitful and 
multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." 

Of the old planters that were here before the going 
away of Sir Thomas Dale the following were still hving in 
Virginia at this time : — 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624— MARCH, 1625 613 

0£ those sent under the royal charter in 1606-1608 : 
Nathaniel Causey, John Dods, David Ellis, Captain Thomas 
Graves, Anne Laydon, John Laydon, Captain John Martin 
(the only member of the original Council then living in 
Virginia), Thomas Savage, Richard Taylor, Captain Francis 
West, and probably a few others. Ralegh Crashaw was 
living in 1624, and he was probably still living, but absent ; 
Ensign William Spence is recorded as " lost " in 1623, but 
he may have been Hving in captivity. 

Of those sent under the company charters in 1609-1615 : 
William Askew, Robert Aston, Henry and Thomas Bag- 
well, WilHam Bailey, Hugh Baldwin, Michael Batt, Lieu- 
tenant Edward Berkeley, Theophilus Beriston, Richard 
Biggs, Walter Blake, John Blow (Blower, etc.), Richard 
Bolton, Reynold Booth, Thomas Bouldin, Thomas Cage, 
William Capps, Thomasine Causey, John Carter, Joan 
Chandler, Isaac Chaplain, Francis and Thomas Chapman, 
Josiah Chard, John Clay, Phetiplace Close, Joseph Cobb, 
Susan Collins, Henry Coltman, Joan Croker, John Downe- 
man, Elizabeth Dunthorne, John Ellison, Robert Fisher, 
Joan and Pharao Flinton, John Flood, Thomas Garnet, 
Thomas Godby, George Grave, Robert Greenleafe, Edward 
Grindon, John Gundrie, John Hall, Ralph Hamor, Thomas 
Harris, John Hatton, Hugh Haward (Haiward or Howard), 
Gabriel and Rebecca Holland, Oliver Jenkins, John John- 
son, Elizabeth Jones, Cicely Jordan, WiUiam Julian, Rich- 
ard Kingsmill, Thomas Lane, John Lightfoot, Robert Lince 
(Lynch ?), Albiano Lupo, Francis Mason, William Morgan, 
Alexander Mountney, Robert Paramour, Robert Partin, 

•'William Perry, Joan and William Pierce, Robert Poole, Jr., 
John Powell, John and William Price, Miles Prickett, John 
Proctor, James Robeson, Christopher and Robert Salford, 

;> Walter Scott, Samuel and William Sharpe, James Sleigh, 

Joan and John Smith, William Spencer, Thomas Stepney, 

John Stone, Thomas Sully, John Taylor, Captain William 

/ Tucker, Henry Turner, John and Susan Vigo, William 

/ Vincent, Edward Waters, Thomas Watts, Amyte Wayne, 



614 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Michael Wilcocks, Henry Williams, Thomas Willoughby, 
Sir George and Lady Temperance Yeardley, and others. 

These were all entitled to land under the Great Charter 
of November 28, 1618. 

The Anne arrived in Virginia soon after March 6, 1625, 
•with the royal commission of September 5, 1624, authoriz- 
ing Sir Francis Wyatt to be the royal governor, and Fran- 
cis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger 
Smith, Ralph Hamor, John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel 
Matthews, Abraham Peirsey, Isaac Madison and William 
Claiborne to be the King's Council in Virginia, to govern 
the colony temporarily " until some other constant and set- 
tled course could be resolved upon and established by the 
King"." There was nothinof in the commission to encourag-e 
the hope for a continuance of popular rights. There was no 
provision for a House of Burgesses nor General Assembly. 
The king had now resumed the government of the colony. 

Captain John Smith, at the end of one of his summaries ^ 
of how much he had done and how little had been done by 
his " successors," says that the company " broke, not mak- 
ing any account, nor giving satisfaction to the Lords, 
Planters, Adventurers, nor any ; whose noble intents had 
referred the managing of this intricate businesse to a few 
that lost not by it. So that his Majesty recalled their com- 
mission ; and by more just cause, than they perswaded 
King James to call in ours [in 1609], which were the first 
beginners, without our knowledge or consent, disposing of 
us and all our indevours at their pleasures." I have given 
the motive for, and manner of the altering of the charters 
(in 1609), which was really for the best and was honorably 
done on the petition of sundry planters as well as adven- 
turers. The summary is an imposture. 

Those planters who did not remain in the colony, those 
adventurers who did not secure a full share by paying for 
it, and those subscribers who failed to pay their subscrip- 
tions in full, under the articles of the company, had for- 

1 Arber's edition of Smith's Works, pp. 927-931. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 615 

felted their claims against the company, as they had failed 
to comply with their part of the contract. But those who 
secured full shares by continuing in the Virginia services, 
or by paying for them in cash, and those who paid the full 
amount of their subscriptions, either sold their shares or 
received their lands in Virginia, or the not doing so was 
their own fault ; for they were legally entitled to these lands, 
both under the company and under the crown. 

Smith says the Virginia Company in carrying out " their 
owne conceits consumed more than ,£200.000, and neere 
eight thousand men's lives." He attributed this result to 
" want of good order and government." It is true that the 
enterprise had cost much money and many lives ; but many 
a battle in a bad cause has cost more and accomplished less 
for the betterment of mankind. The government designed 
by the company was the crowning glory of the colony. 

The simple facts are that the London Company for Vir- 
ginia secured a fifth kingdom for England and planted in 
the new world the germs of civil and religious liberty for 
the glory of their posterity ; that the king, in resuming 
the government, took for the crown the emoluments which 
were then accruing to the company as the result of their 
long and patient labors so freely bestowed with their tune 
and money ; and that " the historian " robbed them of 
their good name. More than 120 years ago our forefathers 
revolted against the crown and resumed the popular rights 
granted to them under the company. It is time for their 
posterity to remove the ungenerous covering with which 
" the historian," under the royal prerogative, concealed the 
broad foundation on which the nation was established. 

As I have said in the preface. Smith's " history " is de- 
voted to lauding himself ; to magnifying the work accom- 
plished in his time, by him, under the crown, 1606-1609, 
and to obscuring or belittling the work done by the com- 
pany, 1609-1624 ; that is, to presenting a view agreeable 
to many at that time, but contrary to the facts. The fol- 
lowing statement gives the idea, in the premises, conveyed 
by the most reliable evidences. 



616 UNDER THE COMPANY 



State op the Colony in Virginia when it was received 
BY THE Company from the Crown, in 1609. 

The Government. 

Form. Monarchical or Aristocratic. 

Officials. " Capt John Smith sole governor [president 
of the King's Council in Virginia], who would admit no 
Assistants." No written laws, and much confusion. 

The General Condition of the Colony. 

Between 70 and 130 EngHsh, probably " about 80," liv- 
ing precariously, some at Jamestown, others near the oyster 
banks below, and some among the savages. No landown- 
ers; no ministers. No provisions save about seven acres 
of growing corn. The colony being in a general state of 
necessity and distress, for which, however, I consider no 
human being responsible. 

State of the Colony in Virginia ^ when it was returned 
BY the Company to the Crown, in 1625. 

The Government. 

Form. Popular, Repubhcan, or Democratic. 

Officials. Sir Francis Wyatt, governor, with Francis 
West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Ralph Hamor, 
Roger Smith, Dr. John Pott, and John Pountis, as his 
Council. The governor and Council, constituting the Coun- 
cil of State, elected by the company (adventurers). The 
House of Burgesses, consisting of two burgesses out of 
every town, hundred, or other particular plantation, freely 
elected by the inhabitants (planters). The Council of State 
and the House of Burgesses constituting the General As- 
sembly (representing the adventurers and planters), by 

^ In this summary, for cogent rea- forgotten that New England had also 
sons, I have confined myself to the been settled in 1620, under the com- 
status of Virginia ; but it must not be pany charters of 1609 and 1612. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624— MARCH, 1625 617 

which proper laws were properly executed, as well as by 
regular quarterly courts and monthly courts. 

The General Condition of the Colony. 

I. The Corporation of Henrico. 

Public lands. 3000 acres of company and 1500 acres 
of common land ; 10,000 acres for the university and 
1000 acres for the colleo:e. 

Private lands. Prior to April, 1622, there had been 
granted to some 23 proprietors about 2800 acres ; but as 
a result of the massacre this corporation was almost de- 
populated in 1625, the only inhabitants then being on 
the college lands. With the exception of Francis Weston 
(or Wilton) and Edward Hobson, the landowners of Hen- 
rico were either dead or living elsewhere. John Peterson 
(or Patterson) and Thomas Sheffield had been killed by the 
Indians ; Anthony Edwards, Nathaniel Norton, Thomas 
Tracy, Peter Neumart, Thomas Morgan, Robert Ackland, 
John Griffin, Thomas Read, and Thomas Tyndall were 
probably dead. The following were living : John Proctor, 
Wilham Perry (then in England), and Phettiplace Close, 
" over the river from Jamestown ; " John Billiard (or Vil- 
liard), Richard Bolton, and John Laydon, in " Elizabeth 
City ; " John Price, in " the Neck of Land Charles City ; " 
Lieutenant Edward Berkeley, on " Hog Island," and John 
Blower (Blow, or Blore, who had surrendered his patent 
on " FalHng Creek " to the use of the iron-works), on 
" the Eastern Shore." It had been hoped that the western 
bounds of Henrico might be the great South Sea ; but the 
Indians made it unsafe for the extension of the settlements 
to the westward, and thus the corporation became so small 
that at some time between 1625 and 1629 the bounds were 
extended down the river so as to include the upper part of 
Charles City, " the Neck of Land " and " the Curls of the 
river " below, making the dividing Hne as it was when the 
coimties were formed in 1634. 



618 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Inhabitants. 18 free, 3 servants/ aud 1 cliil,d born in 
Virginia. Total, 22. 

Mouses, 10 dwelling-houses. 

Cattle, swine, etc. One hog belonging to Lieutenant 
Thomas Osborne. The Indians had the rest. 

Co7m and other ^;royisio?is. 57 barrels of corn, 6} 
bushels of pease and beans, and 1800 fish, wet and dry. 

Fortifications. None. 

Arms and ammunition. 21 snaphaunce pieces, 6 swords, 
13 armors, 9| pounds powder, and 52 pounds lead. 

Boats and harks. One (return probably incomplete). 

II. The Corporation of Charles City. 

Public lands. 3000 acres of company and 1500 acres 
of common land ; 500 acres " uppon the Easterly side of 
Chapokes creek," belonging to the treasurer's place, and 
100,000 acres belonging to Southampton Hundred (from 
Tanx Wyanoke to the mouth of the Chickahominy River), 
which had been virtually abandoned since the massacre, 
the few remaining tenants having removed to Hog Island. 

Private lands. There had been granted to some 70 
proprietors about 20,000 acres of land. Owing to deaths 
and many changes this is only an approxunate estimate ; 
but the hst is as complete as Captain Claiborne " could 
then attain unto." After the massacre, in 1622, many 
entitled to lands were probably in doubt as to where best 
to settle, as they did not locate their land until 1627-1629, 
after the colony had passed to the crown. It seems that 
all the grants then in Charles City had been made before 
1624. After the massacre, that part of this corporation 
above the mouth of the Appomattox (which was after- 
wards added to Henrico), like Henrico, was almost depopu- 
lated, and " the Neck of Land " was the only plantation 
or settlement reported therein in February, 1625. The 
following persons, or their heirs, then OAvned lands in the 

^ " A servant of " then meant in " the service of ; " it had not as menial a 
meaning as now. Servant and service might be of a high character. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 619 

bounds of Sir Thomas Dale's chosen place of resistance. 
Living : WilHam Vincent, Richard Taylor, Joshua Chard, 
John Dodds, William Sharpe, and Thomas Cage, then liv- 
ing in " the Neck of Land ; " Robert Partin, Richard Biggs, 
Henry Bagwell, and William Bailey, living " at West and 
Sherley Hundred; " Thomas Douse and Francis Mason, in 
" Elizabeth City ; " Isaac Chaplain, at " Chaplain's Choice ; " 
Nathaniel Causey, at " Jordan's Jorney ; " John Carter and 
Thomas Swinhow, " the Maine ; " Theophilus Beriston, in 
" Jamestown ; " and Thomas Hobson, " over the river from 
Jamestown." Dead, or probably dead: Samuel Jarratt 
(killed, 1622), George Grimes (d. 1623), George Cawcott, 
Thomas Rosse (or Rose), John Owley, James Usher, Wil- 
liam Cradock, John Harris, Captain Isaac Madison (d. 
1624), John Dade, Simon Fortescue, John Writters (Wit- 
ters, or Withers), Lieutenant Richard Crouch, John Carr, 
and Robert Bourne (or Browne). 

" At Westover." Captain Francis West. 

"Uppon Apmatucke River," probably below that river 
on the south side of James River. William Farrar, living 
at " Jordan's Jorney ; " Charles Magnor, Samuel Sharpe, 
Humphrey Kent, and Mr. Abraham Peirsey, living in 
" Percy's Hundred ; " Henry Milward, killed in 1622 ; Rich- 
ard Simons, Arthur Antony, William Sizemoure, and Wil- 
liam Douglas, possibly dead. 

" In the Territory of great Weyonoke." Living : Wil- 
liam Bailey, in " West and Sherley Hundred ; " William 
Jarret (or Garret), at '^ Percy's Hundred ; " Temperance 
Bailey (?), at "Jordan's Jorney;" and Isaac Chaplain, at 
" Chaplain's Choice." Dead : Samuel Jordan (1623), and 
Captain John Woodliffe (?) ; killed by Indians : Christo- 
pher Harding (1623), Richard Pratt (1622), and Captain 
Nathaniel Powell (1622). 

" Mr. Samuel Maicocks Divident." He had been killed 
by Indians in 1622. 

" Tanks Wayonoke over against Persey's hundred," 
2200 acres belonging to Sir George Yeardley. 



620 UNDER THE COMPANY 

" Capt. Spillman's Divideiit." He liad been killed by In- 
dians in 1623. 

"Martin Brandon, belonging to Captaine John Martin 
by Patent out of England." He was then living in Eliza- 
beth City. The other landowners here were George Har- 
rison and Capt. Samuel Each, both then dead. 

Inhohitants. 119 free, 84 servants, 26 children, and 7 
negroes. Total, 236. 

Houses. 68 dwellings. (Mr. Abraham Peirsey, one of 
the commissioners, making a complete return for his hun- 
dred, 12 dwellings, 3 storehouses, 4 tobacco-houses, and 1 
windmill.) 

Cattle. 149 swine, 140 kine and 884 poultry. (The 
only corporation making a poultry return, and this one only 
in part. Nathaniel Causey owned " 50 Poultrie ; " no one 
else reported over 40.) 

Corn. 451 barrels of corn ; 94 bushels of peas and 
beans ; 4650 fish, wet and dry ; 1 hogshead English wheat, 
5 bushels English meal (flour), 5 bushels meal and 3 bush- 
els oatmeal. 

Fortifications. One fort " at Chaplain's choice." 

Anns. 169 snaphaunce pieces ; 6 pistols and petronells ; 
49 swords, besides " dagers " and " hangers ; " 158 ar- 
mors (coats of mail, — of steel, — of plate, quilted coats, 
buff coats, jackets and headpieces) ; 1| barrels and 182^ 
pounds powder, and 2060 pounds lead. 

Boats. Report incomplete. 

IH. The Corporation of James City. 

Public lands. 3000 acres of company and 1500 acres 
of common land; 3000 acres laid out for the place of 
the governor (planted), in which were some small parcels, 
granted by Sir Thomas Dale and Sir Samuel Argall 
(planted). These lands were in " Pasbeheys " on the north 
side of the river, below the mouth of the Chickahominy 
River. The names of the owners of the " small parcels " 
are not given, but they were among the earliest land- 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624— MARCH, 1625 621 

owners in Virginia. There wfere also glebe lands in each 
corporation. 

Private lands. There were many parcels of land granted 
on Jamestown Island and lots in the town — to Dr. John 
Pott, Ralph Hamor, Roger Smith, Richard Stephens, Rich- 
ard Tree, Sir Francis Wyatt, Sir George Yeardley, Capt. 
John Harvey, William Spencer, John Chew, John Lightf oot, 
Thomas Passmore, Mary Holland, Thomas Sully, George 
Menefie, William Pierce, Edward Blaney (or Blaine), Abra- 
ham Peirsey, John Southerne, Thomas Alnutt, Peter Long- 
man, John Borrows, Rev. Richard Buck (dead), John Jack- 
son, John Jefferson, and others. In addition to these there 
had been granted to about seventy proprietors about 40,000 
acres of land. With the exception of thirteen grants, the 
rest were probably issued prior to 1624. These were as 
follows : — 

In " The Territory of Tappahannuck over against James 
Cittie." Living : John Dodds at " the Neck of Land in 
Charles City ; " John Burrows at " Burrows Hill ; " Richard 
Pace, Francis Chapman and Thomas Gates at " Pace's 
Paines ; " Capt. Samuell Matthews on his dividend ; John 
Baynham in " Elizabeth city ; " Mr. George Sandys (pat- 
ented in 1624) and Edward Grin don in Jamestown, and 
Ensigne John Utie (patented on Chippoake's creek in 1624) 
on Hog Island. Dead, Capt. Wm. Powell (1624) and 
Robert Evers (1624) ; killed by Indians, John Rolfe (1622). 
Dead or absent, Capt. John Hurlestone (Hurdston, etc.) of 
the Bona Nova, and WilHam Ewins owner of the Supply. 

In " Hog Island." Living : Mary Baily at " West and 
Sherley Hundred ; " Captain Ralph Hamor on " Hog Is- 
land." The remainder of " Southampton Hundred in Hog 
I. planted." 

At " Archer's Hope." Living : Captain Roger Smith, 
Captain William Claiborne, John Johnson (patented in 
1624), George Sandys (patented 1624) and John Jefferson 
in Jamestown ; Richard Kingsmill " at the Neck of land in 
James Citty ; " Richard Brewster then in England. Lost : 



622 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Ensign William Spence (in 1623). Dead: Joakim An- 
drews (in 1624) and John Grubb ; killed by Indians 
(1622) : John Fowler, William Fairfax, and Richard Sta- 
ples. The George Perry who owned 100 acres here may 
be George Percy then in England. 

In " Martin's Hundred," the names of the landowners 
are not given. 

" Near Mulberry Island." Nathaniel Huatt (Hurt or 
Hall) probably dead ; Mr. John Rolfe killed, and Captain 
William Pierce then living on his lands there. 

" At Warrasquoake Plantation contayning downewards 
from Hog Island fourteen miles by the River side *in 
which are these Pattents." Living : John Carter, in " The 
Maine;" Adam Dixon at " Pasbahaghs ; " John PoUington 
at "Warrasquoake;" Captain Nathaniel Basse at "Basse's 
choice;" Anthony Barkham at "Mulberry I.," and Thomas 
Powell on the " Eastern Shore." Dead or absent : Chris- 
topher Daniel, John Berry, Thomas Winter, and Giles 
Jones. 

" At Blunt Point." Living : Gilbert Peppet, John 
Baynham ^ (or Burnham), " Thomas Hothersall ^ of Pas- 
behay," Cornelius May, Percival Ibbison (or Ibotson, or 
Iverson) and Edward Waters ^ in Elizabeth City ; Captain 
Samuel Matthews " over the river from Jamestown ; " Wil- 
liam Claiborne and Richard Tree at Jamestown ; Ralph 
Hamor at "Hog Island." Dead or absent: Francis Gif- 
ford, Richard Craven, and Richard Domelaw. 

" Below Blunt Point." Patents prior to June, 1624, 
to Captain John Hurlestone of the Bona Nova, Robert 
Hutchins or Hutchinson, John Southerne of Jamestown, 
and Sir Francis Wyatt. Patents in 1624 to Morris Thom- 
son of Jamestown ; John Salford, Pharao Flinton, William 
Bentley and Thomas Godby of Elizabeth City, and Lieu- 
tenant Giles Allington who was probably then in England. 

Lnhabitants. 204 free, 226 servants, 35 children and 
10 negroes. Total, 475. 

1 Patented in 1624. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 623 

Houses. 78 dwellings. Jamestown reports 22 dwell- 
ings, 1 church, 1 merchant's store, and 3 storehouses. 
Also, " 1 Large Court of Guard." " Over the water " 
reports 18 dwellings, 5 stores, 4 tobacco-houses, 1 stone 
house and 1 silk-house. 

Cattle. 353 swine, 286 kine, 239 goats and kids ; 1 
horse and 1 mare, belonging to, or in the custody of, the 
governor. 

Corn. 691 barrels corn ; 4 hogsheads (1 hogshead = 
9 bushels) and 52|- bushels pease and beans ; 1 hogshead, 
1 barrel and 34,758 fish, wet and dry ; 1 hogshead English 
meal ; 71 hogsheads, 2 barrels and 12 bushels Virginia 
meal ; 1 hogshead and 9 bushels oatmeal ; butter, cheese, 
oil, vinegar, etc. ; bacon flitches, etc., biscuit, etc. 

Fortifications. Four forts are reported as being in the 
plantations across the river from Jamestown. 

Arms. 350 snaphaunce pieces, 46 matchlocks, 20 
pistols and petronells, 186 swords ; 318 armors of sundry 
sorts ; 7 corslets ; 6 runnets and 10 pounds match ; 341 
pounds powder, and 2521 pounds lead. At Jamestown, " 4 
pieces of ordnance mounted ; 16 Quilted Coats ; 77 Coats 
of Male, the rest dispersed in the countrie." 

Boats. Report incomplete. 

IV. Tlie Corporation of Elizabeth City. 

Public lands. 3000 acres of company and 1500 acres 
of common land, with the several glebe lands. The com- 
pany and common lands were on the eastern side of South- 
ampton (now Hampton) river. 

Private lands. There were over thirty-five landowners 
to whom over 12,000 acres of land had been granted. Six- 
teen of these grants had been issued by Governor Wyatt 
between June, 162Jf, and January, 1625 ; these were {on 
the north side of James River) to John Taylor, John 
Powell, Captain William Tucker, Robert Salford, John 
Bush, Lieutenant Lupo, Elizabeth Lupo, Thomas Spilman, 
Mr. William Claiborne, Thomas Bouldin, Mary Bouldin, 



624 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Peter Arundell, Bartholomew Hoskins and Rawley Cro- 
sliaw (or Crashaw) ; (on the south side of James River), to 
John Sipsey (Sibsey, Sibley, Sidley?) and Lieutenant John 
Cheesman or Cbisman. These men were all living in Feb- 
ruary, 1625. Patents prior to 1624 {on the north side of 
the rivei^) : Daniel Gookin and others at New Port Newce 
1300 acres planted ; Rev. Mr. Keith, Richard Boulton, 
John Salford, Miles Pricket, William Julian, Alexander 
Mountney, William Cole, William Brooks als Morgan, 
EHza Donthorne, William Gany, William Capps, and John 
Gundy (or Gunnery, or Gundrie) all living ; and Edward 
Hill who died in 1624, and William Landsdell who was 
probably dead ; {on the south side) : the old landowners 
were Thomas Willoughby (who also owned lands on the 
north side about two miles within the mouth of Pamunkey 
River), John Downman and Captain Wilham Tucker then 
living in " Elizabeth City ; " Thomas Chapman, living at 
" Jordan's Jorney ; " and Thomas Breewood, who had been 
killed by the Indians in 1622. 

Inhabitants. 235 free, ^57 servants, 43 children, 2 In- 
dians and 6 negroes. Total 443. 

Houses. 99 dwellings and 21 storehouses. 

Cattle. 22 swine, 74 kine, and 79 goats. 

Corn. 793 barrels of corn (1 barrel = 5 bushels) ; 4 
hogsheads and 13 bushels pease and beans ; 17,200 fish, 
wet and dry ; 4| hogsheads and 2 barrels meal, and 1 
barrel oatmeal. 

Fortifications. No report. 

Arms. 408 snaphaunce pieces ; 11 matchlocks ; 41 
pistols and petronells ; 187 swords and several rapiers ; 
144 armors of sundry sorts ; 11 corslets and 1 target ; 324 
pounds powder, and 5979 pounds lead. 

Boats. Reports incomplete. 

V. The Eastern Shore over the Bay. 
Public lands. The company's and the secretary's ten- 
ants were there seated on the respective lands ; but it had 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624— MARCH, 1625 625 

not been laid out (surveyed) for them as in the other four 
corporations. 

Private lands. John Blower (Blow, or Blore), 150 acres 
" on old plantation creek ; " " Ensign Thomas Savage his 
Divident," he was then Kving there ; Sir George Yeardley, 
at Hunger's, 3700 acres of land by order of court, and 
" certaine others had planted there but no patents had yet 
been granted them." 

Lihabitatits. 32 free, 17 servants and 2 children. 
Total 51. 

Houses. 20 dwellings and 17 stores. The settlers in 
" Elizabeth city beyond Hampton River," and on " the 
Eastern Shore " report almost as many stores as dwellings. 
They may have been traders with the Indians. 

Cattle. Two hogs only reported, and they belonged to 
Captain William Epes. 

Corn. 245 barrels ; no other provisions reported. 

Fortifications. One fort reported. 

Arms. 34 snaphaunce pieces ; 1 pistol ; 3 swords ; 28 
armors ; 155 pounds powder and 646 pounds shot. 

Boats. Report not complete. 

The following may be given as samples of the private 
reports. 

Sir Francis Wyatt " on the plantation at Pasbehaighs " 
reports " 14 bbls corn, 2000 fish, 8 snaphance Peices, 
2 matchlocks, 4 Armours, 1 Jack Coat, 2 Coats of mail, 
1 steel coat, 1 corslett, 2 good head pieces, 10 lbs powder 
and 60 lbs shott [no report as to number of houses, boats, 
etc.]." At his residence in Jamestown he reports, " 10 
bbls corn, 4000 fish, 20 lbs powder, 180 lbs lead and shot, 
6 snaphaunce pieces, 6 armors, and 6 swords ; 6 cows, 
1 Bull, 3 yearlings and calves, 1 horse, 6 breeding sowes, 
14 young swine ; 1 dwelling house and 1 store." 

Sir George Yeardley reports as having in Jamestown 
and on his plantation, " 20 bbls corn, 12 bushels peas and 
beans, 50 neat cattell [the largest owner ; the next was 



626 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Abraham Peirsey, who reported 27], 40 swine [the largest 
owner; the next was Edward Blaney, who reported 29], 8 
goats and 3 kids, 20 lbs. powder, 100 lbs. lead, 30 snap- 
hance pieces [George Sandys reported the same number ; 
Edward Blaney 29 ; Captain William Tucker 24 ; Captain 
William Pierce 24 ; Captain Samuel Matthews 18], 40 
Swords [Captain William Pierce reported 30, and Abraham 
Peirsey 22 ; no one else returned over 20], 10 Armours, 5 
houses, A Barque of 40 tun 7 men belonging to her, A 
shallop of 4 tunn and a skiffe." 

Mr. George Sandys, the Treasurer, reports " 100 bar- 
rels corn [this is the largest quantity of corn reported by 
any one plantation ; the next is 70 barrels by Abraham 
Peirsey, and the next Q5 barrels by Captain William Epes], 
20 pounds powder, 300 pounds lead and shott, 30 snap- 
haunce pieces, 1 piece of ordnance, 30 Armours, steel coats 
& coats of mail [Captain Samuel Matthews reported 24, 
Edward Blaney 17, Wilham Epes 16] ; 20 swords ; 9 goats 
and 6 kids ; 2 swine ; 2 dwelling houses, 2 stores wdth 
other cabbens, 1 house framed for silkworms, 1 Garden of 
an acre & a half, 1 vineyard of 2 acres, and 1 large fort." 
At his own plantation there were " 1 large fort palled in, 
1 piece of ordnance mounted, 1 dwelling house and 4 other 
houses." 

The houses were generally of wood ; but Zachary Cripps, 
who lived over the river from Jamestown, reports " 1 stone 
house," the only one reported. The dwelling-houses in 
the various plantations are frequently reported as being 
" within pallisadoes." 

There were at least four John Smiths living in the col- 
ony, one of them being an old planter in good circum- 
stances, having 12 barrels corn, 1400 fish, 1 pound powder, 
30 pounds shot, 1 snaphaunce piece, 2 matchlocks, 1 ar- 
mor, 1 coat of steel, 2 coats of mail, 1 swine and 2 houses. 

As the reports do not give the number of acres of land 
in the various " dividents," it may not be known who was 
the largest landowner in Virginia. Tobacco was then, as 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 627 

now, " the money crop " of Virginia ; but as it is not in- 
cluded in the re23ort I do not know who was the largest 
owner of that commodity. I infer, however, that Sir George 
Yeardley was the richest man in the country. Sir Francis 
Wyatt and Mr. George Sandys had control of as much as 
officials, but not as individuals. 

Siimmary. 

Public lands. The lands for the company, colony, 
church, university, college, and free school. (With the ex- 
ception of the glebe lands, which continued to belong to 
the church, and the governor's lands, which I think con- 
tinued to belong to that office, the public lands passed to 
the crown and were afterwards parceled out and granted 
by patents as other lands.) 

Private lands. About 200 owners of about 80,000 
acres of land. But the company had issued many patents 
to many societies and hundreds, the records of which were 
kept privately ; and I have not sufficient data to enable me 
to give the status of these " particular private Plantations 
and Hundreds," such as "Chaplain's Choice," and "Jor- 
dan's Jorney," Southampton, and Martin's Hundred. See 
note, p. 628. 

Inhahitants. Free, 432 males and 176 females ; ser- 
vants, 441 males and 46 females ; total, 1095 emigrants ; 
107 children, making 1202 English. 2 Indians ; 11 negro 
men, 10 women and 2 children = 23 negroes. Grand total, 
1227. 

Houses. The reports were not complete (not at all so 
save as to dwellings) ; " but they were sufficient for the 
people that are now there, the fabricke whereof they have 
much amended within these last two years." 

Cattle. Tame swine about 526 ; cattle about 500 ; goats 
and kids about 300 ; 1 horse and 1 mare. 

Corn. 2237 barrels = 11,185 bushels for man and 
beast ; " no more than sufficient to bring the year about," 
but they intended trading for corn with the savages in 



628 UNDER THE COMPANY 

the bay. The reports as to the other victuals were only 
partial. 

Fortifications: " They have none sufficient against a 
stronger enemy than the savages and against them only 
houses impaled." 

Arms. 982 snaphaunce pieces, 57 matchlocks, 68 pistols 
and petronels ; 431 swords^ besides rapiers, daggers, hang- 
ers, etc. ; 661 armors of the several kinds, besides corslets, 
targets, etc. ; I2 barrels and 1012 pounds powder, and 
9758 pounds lead, shot, etc. " Of arms offensive they had 
sufficient ; defensive not half enough, and were in great 
want of powder, but of lead to make small shot they had 
enough for the present." " They had 33 pieces of ordi- 
nance, whereof about ten mounted; 26 murtherers and 
Bases, with several fauconetts and chambers." The report 
only pretends to be complete as to ^' pieces," armours, pow- 
der and lead. Many plantations made no report on side 
arms, pistols, swords, etc. 

Boats, " They were reasonably well provided with 
boats ; " but many plantations did not give them in, and 
only 38 boats, 2 shallops, 1 barque, 1 skiff and 1 "canow" 
are reported. 

Note. The private societies and hundreds must also be 
considered in this summary. I have given an outline, in 
Part I., of those patented before 1619. The following list 
of those granted during 1619-1624 is given in the order 
of sealing. All of the patentees had " divers partners with 
them whose names and several shares " have not been pre- 
served, and it may be that some of the patents stood on the 
Virginia records in the name of one of these partners. 

Sealed between May, 1619, and July, 16B0. 

1, Southampton Hundred ; 2, Robert Heath, recorder of 
London ; 3, " Master Wincoppe ; " 4, " Master Tracie ; " 
5, Doctor Bohun ; 6, " Master John Pierce ; " 7, John Del- 
bridge ; 8, John Poyntz or Pountis ; 9, John (and his son 
Maurice) Berkeley; 10, John Bargrave; and 11, John Ward. 



VlKcnNlA. .lliNK. »(V;i IMAKlll. 1(525 ()'29 

Scaled Ixinurii Juhj, !(r)K <///(/ Mm/, 1(1 '!. 

VI, Willi.im II.Mh.'ii IvmI oI' r.'ml)n)li(> ; \\\, Sir Ivlrlinnl 

1.). Sir William IMounson ; 1(). Sir Willi.nn Njmvcoj.'MmI 17, 
K\'i1{)h ll.'unor. 

!S('ahfl h(f/r,<ii MiUj, U)'?l , (IikI <Iuii(\ 1(1^^. 

IS. L;uly Dal,'; P.), Sir l>ii(ll,>y Dij-vvm; 'JO. Sir .lolm 
HoincliiiM-; 'JIl, Ivowlantl TriKlov*. P'raiiriM Wal«M lious*^, 
.loliM l<llkiiio((>n, TohiaH (■oojmm-, Jaim'M Hrrlii*!. IJiclianl 
IV^rry, Tlioinas WaliM-liouso, .loliu LaKr ov I ii^aKc, TliomaM 
()\v«Mi or ()\v<>iis, Joliii (\)('liM or ('Oclus ^^ illiam Wliilo, 
Tohias .loliMson. and liawrciici^ l't"i!;'li; 122, **.Iolin ('rowo 
ol N(>\vl(»M, III ilu* coiinly ol W <<\ IokI. iii Irt^laiul IjStjuiroj" 
'Ji>, P'dward liidcr ; 'Jl. Simon li«\iK»»; 'J.^, |)alli^^l (jooliiii; 
'2(5, l*](l\\ar«l, Ivicliard, and Ivoltorl. I^Miuolt, TliomaH uiul 
lvi(i«ar<l \\ iNcman, and Tliomas Ayr(\4; 27, •loHopll Lo" 
mmi;(> (?) ; 'JS, " Sir (^liarl(vs Norlii <d" Walvrinj;liain, in llio 
fonnly ol' NoliinL;liani ; " 21), Sir (^(M)r;•(^ ^ «ai(ll(>y ; I50, 
'rin)maK Ii(>voson or LanMon; IM, William Wridon ; 152, 
*'II»Miry Sonllicy ol lkim|>l<>n, in SomrrsclNliiri^ ; " ',VA, Mai*- 
Ini's llnndriMJ ; IM, IvoIxmI MomIoii or Monlslon ; .'»r>, i'ld- 
ward Wynnes; !{(>, ll(Miry IN^IIiani ; 157, Daniol 'I'imIhm ; 'AH, 
Sir How yor Worsh^y ; )»1), l<'ran(Ms llaiwcll ; and 10, "Sir 
John l>rook d/s (\)l)liaiii. 

JSca/nl hctirrrn Jithi, Kli:!:?, aiuf Mmj, /^''JVl 

11, Lady U(MK«>I»^y ; 12, " 'IMiomas Addison ol' liincoln'M 
Inn, in iho connty ol Middlcsrx l*'s(|iiirr ; " l.'», Mdward 
.lidinson; II, l*:<lward raliiu^r ol' llio Middle TcMiipIo ; ir», 
Wdliaiii l*\lt;al(^ ; IC), l^^aiiciM INm'Kc^ or INM-hr ; 17, .l<din 
llarv««y; IS, .lolm INmiiImmIoh ; ll>, William IJ.owslry ; f»0, 
( ■lirisl()|)luM- Miliary; r>l, '•'■ .lanuvs Sl.cMvarl. (oi* Slnarl) ol' 
I^nclian m Scolland, i<jS<|niro ; " Wl, *•' 'riioiiias ( uavc.s ol' 
DnMin III llni iu^alm <d Ircdand, «;(mi1. ; " MI, Samind Mal- 
llmws; T) I, "■(MuiKlopJKM' IiOV<>IX ol Sliorlmrno in llio roiinly 
of I)ors(il, ^ont. ; " 55, .lolin PnliiuM-; .OO, " W illiam Dillco 
ol' CloiiiOiil.H Inn;" 57, I'^anciM IJaldwin ; 5S, .lamrM Halt 
(M-IyC?); 5!), Arllmr ! -rvclliw (?) ; (iO, .lolm Marliii ; (il, 
"Mr. RoiMM-, Mr. V\[/. ,l(drr(>yH and olJmiM ; " (;2, i<\anriH 



630 UNDER THE COMPANY 

Harwell ; 63, Thomas Moore ; 64, Rieliard Norwood ; 65, 
Edward Hurd; 66, John Fills or Fields; 67, John Blyth; 
and 68, John (son of Captain Christopher) Newport. 

Sealed after May, 1623. 

69, John Zouch ; 70, Clement Dilke ; 71, John Proctor ; 
and 72, " John Prynn of London marchant." 

All of the foregoing patentees " together with their asso- 
ciates undertook to transport great multitudes of people and 
cattle to Virginia ; " but they were much interrupted in 
carrying out their contracts by the conduct of the crown 
after 1622. Some of the patentees were adventurers, 
others were planters. Several received, during 1616-1624, 
more than one patent. 

It must be noted that the foregoing statement and sum- 
mary has been compiled almost entirely (1) from the reports 
of the royal commissioners, who were not disposed to make 
the state of the colony more favorable than it was, and (2) 
from incomplete data, the reports being only fairly com- 
plete as to people, lands, cattle, swine, corn, fish, arms and 
ammunition. Other things are sometimes mentioned, but 
as to them the report is evidently very incomplete. It 
must also be remembered that a great part of the cattle, 
horses, hogs, goats, etc., had been destroyed by the Indians 
during the massacres of 1622 and since. 

The Church of England was the church of the colony ; 
but there was " liberty of religion," some of the emigrants 
being nonconformists, and some of the ministers were " In- 
dependents." No report, however, as to the condition of 
the church in Virginia at this time has been found, and 
this is especially to be regretted. The early ecclesiastical 
history of the colony is probably even "more incomplete 
than the secular. The scattered references collected before 
me are too meagre to justify me in attempting a sketch of 
the state of .the church in Virginia in 1625. I am quite 
sure, however, that there were churches, or chapels, in each 
of the four great boroughs, and on the eastern shore ; and 
also in several of the hundreds and private plantations. In 
the reports the ministers are not designated by their title. 



VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — MARCH, 1625 631 

"Reverend" or "Rev.," and therefore I do not know how 
many there were hving in 1625, but among them were the 
Reverends Francis Bolton, George Keith, Greville Pooley, 
David Sands or Sandys, Jonas Stockton, Hawte Wyatt, and 
others. 

The Rev. Robert Hunt seems to have been the only 
minister sent out under the crown ; but it seems certain 
that each one of the large expeditions sent out by the 
company carried one or more ministers, and equally certain 
that even the names of some of them have not been pre- 
served. Rev. Richard Buck is the only name preserved of 
those who came in the fleet of 1609. The name of Lord 
De la Warr's minister, who came in 1610, is not known. 
Rev. Alexander Whitaker and the Rev. Mr. Pool (or Pow- 
ell) came with Dale in 1611 ; the Rev. Mr. Glover with 
Gates in the same year ; and Rev. William Mease and Wil- 
liam Wickham probably came at the same time. Rev. 
George Keith probably came with Argall in 1617. The 
list preserved of those who came with the large emigrations 
of 1618-1623 is evidently very incomplete. In 1618, Rev. 
Thomas Bargrave ; 1619, Rev. Robert Paulett ; 1620, 
Rev. David Sands or Sandys ; 1621, Revs. WilUam Ben- 
nett, Francis Bolton, Jonas Stockton, Thomas White, and 
Hawte Wyatt; 1622, Revs. William Leate or Leake and 
Greville Pooley, and probably Rev. Mr. Hopkins and Rev. 
Mr. Pemberton ; and in 1623, Rev. Mr. Fenton, Rev. Henry 
Jacob, the founder of the first Independent church in Lon- 
don, and probably Rev. Robert Staples, and many more 
now unknown. The history preserved little of the devoted 
acts and services of any of them in the colony ; yet nearly 
all of them gave their lives to the enterprise and were 
among the first martyrs to the cause of Christ in this coun- 
try. Although I have not found sufficient evidence to 
enable one to write a particular account of the state of the 
churches and of the acts of the clergy in Virginia, all evi- 
dences as yet found show that the church and her minis- 
ters were held in great reverence both by the officials and 
the people of the colony. That the ministers performed 



632 UNDER THE COMPANY 

their duties during the trials which constantly confronted 
them cannot be doubted. They crossed the Atlantic for 
that purpose. 

Although we have not all of the particulars, we know 
that the first university, the first college, the first schools, 
both for the EngHsh and the Indians, and the first hos- 
pitals, chajitable institutions, etc., in this country were 
embraced in the designs of the company. And notwith- 
standing that these enterprises had to contend against the 
usual disasters, the managers continued to prosecute them 
with their usual perseverance until their whole proceedings 
were put a stop to by the interference of James I. This 
prevented them from being carried forward to full or final 
success ; but the facts reveal the motives of the managers 
in these premises, and must have left a favorable impress 
on the colony. The desire to educate the natives in order 
to make good citizens and Christians of them was weak- 
ened by the massacre of 1622, but the motive was a most 
laudable one, and the desire to carry it out with the friendly 
Indians continued to obtain in the company. 

In brief, although the king put a stop to their proceed- 
ings even before many of their plans were fully developed, 
and the Privy Council succeeded in obscuring many of 
the objects, ideas, and accomphshments of the company 
by licensing incorrect histories and by conceaHng or de- 
stroying most of their records, sufficient evidence has now 
been found to show that the planting of the first repubhc in 
America under the popular charters, drafted by Sir Edwin 
Sandys, was in every way a most interesting — and to us 
the most important — event in our annals. When the 
colony was resumed by the crown " the present Estate of 
Virginia was but small," yet it was sufficient for its des- 
tined purpose. The managers of the company in England 
and in America had planted colonies in North and South 
Virginia, and in so doing, under the authority derived by 
them from their charters, had laid the true foundation of 
the new nation in the new world, upon which it has grown 
to be the greatest nation in the whole world. 



RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

CONCLUSION 

ENGLAND AND VIRGINIA, JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 

JAMES I., JUNE 26, 1624 — APRIL 6, 1625; CHARLES I., APRIL 6, 
1625 — FEBRUARY, 1627 

After the decision in the quo warranto case it was 
reported that the late administration of the Virginia Com- 
pany proposed pursuing " a rule or ruin policy," and on 
July 2, James I. wrote them this letter : *^ You have op- 
posed our course for reforming the abuses of the plantation. 
You have complained of my commissioners and of those 
that have informed both me and them whereby these abuses 
might be redrest. . . . And that nothing but your own 
ways are grown plausible. We have for the present thought 
fit to let you know that we will expect a strict account of 
you if the work do perish under your hands. And there- 
fore require you so to proceed in the quiet & orderly man- 
agement of those affairs and make seasonable supplyes for 
the releaf of the Colony before winter, that we may not 
have hereafter more cause added to the former to let you 
feel the effects of our just displeasure." 

The reformation then intended (or so pretended) was 
that the company should be for the trade, but should not 
have the government of the colony, " the popularnes " of 
the company's government being especially displeasing to 
his Majesty. On July 4, the lord president of the Privy 
Council issued the following order : " His Majestic did this 
day declare His pleasure in the presence of their Lordships 
— That whereas, the Charters of the late Corporation of 
Virginia were this last Term upon a Quo Warranto brought 



634 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

by Mr. Attorney General in the King's Bench overthrown 
— His Majestie was resolved to renew a charter [to the 
company] with the former priviledges, and with amendment 
of such Imperfections as concern ye Government of ye 
Plantation and Colony, and that His Majesties gracious 
Intentions is that all possible care & Industry be used as 
well in the framing of the said Charter as in giving other 
provident & good directions for the government & j)reser- 
vation of the said Colony : — 

" And therefore His Majesty order & appoint, with the 
advice of the Board. The Lord President Montague, Lord 
Pagett, Lord Chichester, Mr Treasurer Edmonds, Mr Comp- 
troller Suckling, bothe ye Principall Secretarys of State 
[Conway and Calvert], Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer 
Weston, M"" Chancellor of the Duchy May, Mr Attorney 
Gen^ Coventry, Mr. Solicitor Gen^ Heath, Sir Robert Killi- 
grew. Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Francis Gof ton. Sir John Wol- 
stenholme and Alderman Johnson, or any six of them, 
whereof two to be of His Majesty's Privy Council, to as- 
semble and meet together as often as they shall think fit, 
and to confer, consult of, resolve and expedite all affairs 
and necessary expedients concerning the well settling of the 
said Colony of Virginia, and to take care and give order 
for the direction and government thereof, and from time to 
time to certify their proceedings & doings concerning the 
same to His Majesty, or this Board for further direction 
therein, untill His Majesty shall take other order." 

On July 6, the commission appointed to advise upon a fit 
patent to be given to the Company of Virginia for set- 
tling the affairs of Virginia ordered " Mr. Farrar, Deputy 
for the late company of Va. to bring in all the Patents, 
Books of accounts, together with the Invoyces concern- 
ing the late Corporation of Virginia, and the lists of the 
people there — to the council chamber to be there kept by 
the Keeper of the Council chest till further order should be 
given." And at the same time they also ordered " that all 
the Stocks, Arreages, etc, due upon Accompts allowed or 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 635 

not allowed, merchandise, profits of lands, and other emol- 
uments whatsoever belonging to the publique of the late 
corporation of Virginia into whose hands soever they shall 
come, shalbe reserved and accompted for to his Majestie 
and to the Commissioners appointed by him, for the use 
of the corporation which his Majesty intendeth of newe to 
erect for the Plantation of Virginia." These emoluments 
reverted to the crown ; the new corporation was not formed. 
The king had now virtually taken to himself the residt of 
the labors and expenditures of the company ; and, as a cli- 
max to the misfortunes of that great corporation, on July 
22, Captain John Smith, who had favored the royal form of 
government, who had opposed the granting of their char- 
ters, criticised their management of the business, and jus- 
tified the king in resuming the government, was licensed 
to pubhsh the history of their enterprise, which had been 
written from his standpoint. 

After Smith's return from Virginia in 1609, he became 
a servant to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who had 
not taken an active part in the colonial movement, and he 
aided Smith in having his Oxford tract published in 1612- 
1613. Seymour died in 1621 ; his Avidow married the Duke 
of Lenox, who died in February, 1624, and she was the 
patroness of the general history. She was then aspiring 
to the hand of the king, and it was through her hands that 
Smith's history was presented to his Royal Majesty.^ It is 
a principle of the Constitution of Great Britain that " the 
king can do no wrong," and history in the past has been, 
in a large degree, what kings and potentates have done, 
frequently written to their order, always subject to their 
revision and to the sanction of their Privy Council. James 
I. regarded Sir Edwin Sandys as his " greatest enemy," 
and said " he could hardly think well of whomsoever was 
liis friend." Certainly no real history of this popular move- 
ment could have been licensed at that time, when it was 
necessary for the king and his Council, in order to justify 

1 This presentation copy is still preserved. 



636 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

the recent decision of tlie royal commission and the court 
of the King's Bench, as well as their own acts in the pre- 
mises, to require that " the history " should suppress the 
truth of history, and conform to the royal ideas before it 
could be licensed. And the Hcensed historians were Cap- 
tain John Smith, who had served in Virginia only under 
the crown, and the Rev. Samuel Purchas, the chaplain of 
Archbishop Abbot, who was the head of the Privy Council, 
for which the historians were virtually spokesmen. If their 
books had been objectionable to James I. (who had just 
silenced the House of Commons itself in an effort to get 
at the truth of this same matter) they could not have been 
licensed ; if they had been published privately they would 
have been burned, as were the books of Sir Edwin Sandys. 
Thus it will be seen that it was and it is largely a matter 
of " under which king." The same elements that insure to 
a " history " of this movement the support of those who 
look from the standpoint of the crown, condemn it as such 
to those who look from the point of view of the company. 
It is needless to go into endless controversies. Laying aside 
old prejudices, we must decide for ourselves which is the 
right view for us to take. 

Although it came to pass that Smith's book became almost 
the only source from which we have derived knowledge of 
the infancy of our State, it was probably Purchas rather 
than Smith whom James I. regarded as the historian of the 
colonial movements. In the dedication of the last edition 
(1626) of his " Pilgrimage " to King Charles, Purchas 
writes : " Your Royall Father (of ever blessed memorie, the 
King of learned and Learnings kings) manifested so much 
favour [to the former editions of the book], as to make it 
Ordinarie of his Bedchamber ; where upon occasion of those 
later Volumes [the four volumes of * Pilgrimes '] then pre- 
sented, he questioned the difference, and professed freely 
that he had read this worke seveii times, giving thereof a 
present testimonie in his learned discourse and censure. 
No lesse did hee promise touching the Pilgrimes^ which 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 637 

he made his Nightly taske, till God called him by fatall 
sicknesse to a better Pilgrimage and of a more enduring 
Kingdome ; even the last day in which that Sunne yeelded 
his present rayes to this citie, sending an Honourable 
messenger with a favourable message of his gentle appro- 
bation and incouragement. Such a testimonie is a King 
of Testimonies, and no lesse reward to the Author, then 
Commendation of the Worke to his worthy Heire, and to 
all English Headers." James I. had permitted his picture 
to be engraved on the title-page of Smith's history, and 
it may be supposed that he also made the copy presented 
CO him by the hand of the grand duchess " ordinarie of his 
Bedchamber," and indorsed it " \n\h a favorable message " 
by the fair messenger ; for although Purchas gives a more 
generous view at certain periods of the enterprise, and is 
more pronounced in giving honors to James I. than is 
Smith, the general idea conveyed by both works is nearly 
the same. In fact, there was evidently some Kterary connec- 
tion, as Purchas depended on notes supplied by Smith for 
a large portion of his account of the American colonies. 

The primate of all England (to whom Purchas was chap- 
lain, and to whom he dedicated the first edition of his " Pil- 
grimage") and other ministers at that time regarding 
James T. as " the Defender of the Faith," naturally opposed 
all encroachments upon his royal prerogative, and thus were 
mainly instrumental in obscuring the acts of those broad- 
minded churchmen who planted civil and rehgious liberty in 
America. 

On July 25, James I. added forty new members to the 
originally appointed commissioners (of July 4) and gave 
them a regular commission for regulating Virginia affairs, 
in which he reviews his own course in the premises ; his 
royal charter and instructions, etc., of 1606 ; the company 
charters of 1609 and 1612 ; the commission of May, 1623, 
and their report of July, 1623, advising him to resume the 
government, etc. ; the refusal of the treasurer and com- 
pany to surrender their charters ; his resort to a quo war- 



638 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

ranto, and his resolution to issue a new charter, etc. ; in 
which and in other Virginia matters the said commission 
was to advise and assist him. This commission was also 
ordered to take into their hands and to keep all of the 
company records; "all Bookes, Orders, Letters, Advices, 
and other Writings and thinges in any wise concerning the 
said Colony and Plantation, in whose handes soever the same 
be, requiring all persons to deliver the same to you . . . 
willing and requiring you to be dilhgent and attendante in 
the execution of the same." ^ 

About thirty members of this commission met at Sir 
Thomas Smythe's house on July 26, and appointed Henry 
Fotherby, clerk, and Thomas Newton, beadle, to the com- 
mission. It was ordered that the commission should meet at 
Sir Thomas Smythe's house every Thursday in the afternoon 
at two. All the charters, books, and other writings, the 
seals of the company, etc., were " to be forthwith brought 
to this place and left here in the custodie of the Gierke for 
this commission." 

Among the things to be considered were : — 

" 1. What course is fittest to settle the government 
there ? 

" 2. What supplies are necessary, etc. ? 

" 3. What is fit to be done for their defence, etc. ? 

"4. What comodities can be raised there for the present 
and what for the future." 

It was deemed " absolute necessetye for the present main- 
taining of the plantation by their tobacco, as the only pre- 
sent means for their subsistence that all foreign tobaccos 
should be excluded from the English market." 

" And it is further ordered that no ship shall go from 
hence to Virginia (whereof 2 or 3 are already in prepara- 
tion) untill a resolution be taken for settling the business 
there, lest the Report of the dissolution of the former gov- 
ernment might breed a confusion there, before the settling 
of a newe." 

^ See Hazard's Historical Collections, vol. i. pp. 183-188. 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 639 

They met again the next day, and continued to meet 
every Thursday or oftener. They soon determined, in 
order to prevent such distractions and confusions in Vir- 
ginia as might happen by various rumors and reports, that 
the king ought " to send a like commission to Virginia 
appointing and authorising such other discreet persons re- 
siding in the parts of Virginia as his Majesty should think 
fit to be his present Council for the ordering, managing, 
and governing of the affairs of that Colonic and Planta- 
tion and of the Persons there already inhabiting, until 
some other constant and settled course be resolved upon 
and established by his Majestic." 

This special " like commission to Virginia" as first drawn 
was to Sir Francis Wyatt, Francis West, Esq., Sir George 
Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, John 
Potts, John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abra- 
ham Peirsey,^ Isaac Madison and William Claiborne, " Gov- 
ernor and 12 Assistants," that is, " thirteene councellors in 
Virginia," as in the original royal commission of 1606; 
but before it was signed by the king on September 5, the 
name of " Mr Pottes " was left out at the request of the 
Earl of Warwick (whom " the king had especially en- 
trusted in the Va. business '"'), because " he was the poy- 
soner of the salvages thear." In this Virginia commission, 
as in the former Enghsh commission, the king reviews his 
own course in the premises, — the granting of his royal 
charter and gi^'ing of his royal orders in 1606 ; the com- 
pany charters ; the commission and their report ; his deter- 
mination to resume the government. The governor and 
Council were to conduct the colony under such instructions 
as " such of you, as have been heretofore of our Councell 
there, have received, or according to such instructions as 
you shall hereafter receave from Us, or our Commissioners 
here to that purpose or intent." The commission was to 
continue only during the royal pleasure.^ The document 

^ Harvey, Matthews, and Peirsey ^ See Hazard's Historical Collections^ 
had been members of the royal com- i. pp. 189-192. 
mission of 1623-1624, in Virginia. 



640 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

was at once sent to Virginia by " the good ship called the 
Anne of London," James Carter, master. 

Mr. George Wyatt, the father of Sir Francis Wyatt, died 
shortly after this, and, on September 28, the king granted 
Sir Francis liberty to return to England for his own private 
business, and appointed Sir George Yeardley to be governor 
in his stead, and on his death John Harvey, or, failing him, 
any one of the Council there chosen by the majority. 

The royal commission in England continued their inves- 
tigations in the interest of the new royal charter, etc. ; but 
under divine Providence delayed making their final report 
until they had received Harvey's final report from Virginia, 
and so it happened that "both the commission, and the 
renewing of the Royal charter expired by reason of' the 
King's death which then suddenly ensued." 

James I. died April 6, 1625, and was succeeded by 
Charles I., who, in the place of the former royal commis- 
sion, soon appointed a committee of his Privy Councilors, 
called " The Lords Commissioners for the affairs of Vir- 
ginia," to whom Captain John Harvey, having recently 
arrived from Virginia, deUvered his " Declaration of the 
State of Virginia at my comminge from thence in Febru- 
ary last," 162|. 

Lord Carew and Sir Edward Conway were appointed a 
special committee to consider that part concerning the se- 
curity of places and persons, the erection of forts and 
maintaining of forces. On May 9, Sir Edward Conway 
wrote to Sir Thomas Smythe asking him "to send such 
persons. Maps, relations and papers,^ which may be with 
you and of use to us in our proceedings." 

Charles I. (unlike James I.) was on especially friendly 
terms with Sir Edwin Sandys and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, 
who, as we have seen, took his part against Middlesex after 
his return from Spain, in the controversies in the last Par- 

1 The documents probably had ref- had already been stored away in the 
erence to the time prior to the year Privy Council chest. 
1619 ; the regular company records 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 641 

Hament of James I. ; and the Privy Council of Charles I. 
soon turned aside the Smjthe party, at least to a certain 
extent, and called the Sandys party into consultation and 
asked them for their opinion relative to what had been the 
two leading bones of contention. 

" The first, our opinion touching the best forme of Gov- 
ernment to be here established for ye affaires of Virginia. 

''The second, an offer to be made for such a contract 
touching tobacco with his Majestic as might both uphold 
his former Revenue and not be grievous to the Planta- 
tions." 

To, these questions they replied between April 25 and 
May 5, 1625, in a long document indorsed as " The Dis- 
cours of the Old Company of Virginia," in which the whole 
field is gone over from the point of view of that party. 
" The second " was really the chief cause of the rupture 
between the Smythe and Sandys parties in the company, 
but it is not necessary to consider it farther in this book. 
The reply to " the first " was to the piu*port that his Maj- 
esty should not have a new charter and a new company, 
but that he should reinstate the old company. It is a very 
strong party paper, and consequently very unjust to the 
first administration (Sir Thomas Smythe's) of the company. 
After receiving this " Discours," the reports from his Privy 
Council board, and from the special committees, on May 
23, Charles I. issued his " Proclamation for setthng the 
Plantation of Virginia ; " which is in part a reply to the 
" Discours." He was more friendly to the company, and 
especially to the Sandys party, than James I. had been for 
some time previous to his death ; but he also was now de- 
termined " to resume the government," or rather was fully 
resolved that " there should be one uniform course of gov- 
ernment in and through all our whole Monarchic. That 
the Government of the Colony of Virginia shall immedi- 
ately depend upon our Selfe, and not be committed to any 
Company, or Corporation, to whom it may be proper to 
trust Matters of Trade and Commerce, but cannot be fit 



642 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

or safe to communicate the ordering of State Affairs be 
they of never so mean consequence," etc. He had come to 
" the same Judgment that our said Father was of, for the 
Government of that Colony of Virginia," and he intended 
having a Royal Council in England and another in Vir- 
ginia, etc. ', but " he didfsnot intend to impeach the inter- 
est of any Adventurer or Planter in Virginia." James I. 
had resolved against the popular government in Virginia. 
Charles I. had now apparently done hkewise ; but the seed 
had been planted in America ; it had germinated ; the seed- 
ling was growing, and was going to continue to grow until 
it bore fruit. 

May 25, the Privy Council wrote to Virginia for a more 
complete list of all the titles and estates of land, public and 
private, in Virginia, than had been returned by Harvey. 

June-August, the first Parhament of Charles I. was in 
session. 

September 14, Sir Thomas Smythe died. 

The Anne returned from Virginia about October 12, 
with a letter from the governor and Council in Virginia 
— dated James City, June 25, 1625, and directed to the 
Privy Council in England ; together -with " the petition of 
the Governor Counsell and Colony of Virginia asseni- 
hied together. To the King's most excellent Majestic " — 
which was sent by Sir George Yeardley ; who was to prefer 
in person the said petition and sundry relations to the king's 
most gracious survey. Owing to the death of Mr. John 
Pountis, who had previously been sent to prosecute their 
suit before the king, and to the fact that some of the same 
persons of whom they had complained were joined in " the 
Kings commission for governing of the affairs of Virginia," 
they thought that their former petition and relations were 
never presented to his Majesty, and therefore they appealed 
to him again. (They had received copies of his English 
commission of July 25, and the originals of his Virginia 
commission of September 5, and of the license for Wyatt's 
return of September 28, 1624.) Their petition ends: "We 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 643 

humblie therefore beseecli your Majestie to affoard a gra- 
cious hearing to the said Sir George Yeardley, and to refer 
the examination of our cause to the Right Honourable 
WiUiam Lord Paget, Sir Richard Weston, Knight, chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, Sir Humphrey May, Knight, chan- 
cellor of the Dutchie, and Sir Robert Killegrew, Knight 
(they being appointed Commissioners by your Majestie for 
the affaires of Virginia) to make report thereof to your 
Majestie." With the exception of Weston, they had all 
been active members of the party of Sir Edwin Sandys. 
This petition was to James I., it not then being known in 
Virginia that he was dead. 

On October 14, a day or so after his arrival in England, 
Sir George Yeardley sent a petition to Charles I. about the 
Virginia business, and asked that he might attend upon 
the Privy Council " and declare unto them the estate that 
the said Colony now remaineth in whereupon such further 
order may be taken, not only for the present, but also for 
the future preservation and subsistance of the same, as to 
your Majestie shall be thought most meet." 

Of the divers heads whereon he was to move the lords 
of the Privy Council the following are among the most im- 
portant, and from these it will be seen that the popular 
seed had already germinated in Virginia. 

" 2. The encouragement of the people there by the se- 
curity of their estates, in granting a Neic Patent to con- 
firm all their dividends of Land with all such priviledges as 
formerly they enjoyed and with more ample as their Lord- 
ships shall think meet, and for the full assurance thereof 
to have it confirmed hy act of Parlia7nent, else they will 
think it may be revoked as the former." 

" 8. To avoide the oppression of Governors there ; that 
their liberty of Generall Assemhlyes may be continued 
and confirmed, and that they may have a voice in election 
of officers as in other corporations," 

On October 24, the Privy Council wrote a long letter to 
the governor and Council in Virginia as to what they were 



644 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

doing, and intended to do, for the colony. " And whereas 
his Majestie is graciously pleased to authorise Sir Francis 
Wyatt knight to be the governor there, and such as are 
now employed for his Majesties Counsell there to have 
authoritie to continue the same employment during his Ma- 
jesties pleasure. His Majesties farther pleasure it is that 
all judgments, decrees, and all important actions be given, 
determined and undertaken by the advise and voices of the 
greater part. And that all be done in his Majesties name 
who out of his princely care of the good of the Colony doth 
take all the country and people into his royall protection 
and government^'' etc. The Privy Council wrote another 
letter on November 3, declaring to the colony " that the 
King's pleasure was to preserve every man's particular 
right, and the Planters to enjoy their former priviledges ; 
with addition of other requisite immunities ; encouraging, 
also, the Planter to discoveries both by sea and land ; and 
to perfect the Trade of Furs." Which letters were taken to 
Virginia by the Virgin, of Southampton (possibly the first 
ship sent under Charles I.) ; and, according to their lord- 
ships' commands, were, upon the arrival of the ship, pub- 
lished in Virginia. 

Late in February, 1626, the Flying Hart, of Flushing, 
returned from Virginia with a letter from the governor and 
Council there, dated " James Cittie 13 Jany 1626," and 
addressed to " The Lords commissioners for affairs of Vir- 
ginia." They state that the ship had been " set out by Mr 
Arthur Swaine & William Constable adventurers of the 
Company," and had arrived on December 25 last, with no 
commission for the ship " nor any letters or directions at 
all to guide our proceedings ; " but " notwithstanding these 
irregularities the substance of the news they bring is soe 
joyfull and welcome, as after many discomforts and per- 
plexities, hath revived the hearts of all men — Namely that 
it hath pleased God, to place in ye Royall Throne our gra- 
cious Soveraigne King Charles (whose happy Raigne, God 
of his Mercy long continue over us). Who not only in 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 645 

piety, justice and wisdome, treads in the steps of his Royall 
father of famous memory, but also in his affection and 
favour to this hopefull Colony, not only by continuing the 
favors formerly graunted but by adding to & enlarging 
them and taking the care thereof amidst the multiplicitie 
of his great affairs into his more near and special considera- 
tion which gives us assured hope that our humble petitions 
formerlie exhibited shall [now] have a favourable admit- 
tance, and such order taken therein as may best conduce to 
the advancement of the Plantation," etc. It is probable 
that many in Virginia really rejoiced at the death of James 
I. and the succession of Charles I. 

In the letter they tell a good deal about what was going 
on in Virginia. " Captain [Thomas] Jones had arrived 
about the middle of July last in a Spanish friggott, which 
he had taken in the West Indies under the Commission of 
the States, as he pretended, graunted to Capt. [John] Pow- 
ell, from whose consortship he separated himself, and put in 
here for reliefe," and died soon after. The governor states 
that his private estate will oblige him to return to England 
as soon as possible ; that he had been enforced for want of 
advice and a new commission to proceed according to " ye 
former," and " We humbly desire that our continuing the 
same forme and course of our proceedings, may be inter- 
preted as done out of necessity least the Colony (in the 
interim) should suffer for want of due order and Govern- 
ment." 

March 14, 1626, Charles I., " being forced by many 
other urgent occasions (in respect of our late access unto 
the crown) to continue the same means that was formerly 
thought fit for the maintenance of the said Colony and 
plantation, imtil we should find some more convenyent 
means upon mature advice, to give more ample Directons 
for the same, and reposing assured Trust and confidence 
in the Understanding, Care, Fidelitie experience, and cir- 
cumspection of " them, appointed Sir George Yeardley to 
be his present governor, and John Harvey, Francis West, 



646 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

George Sandys, John Pott, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, 
Samuel Matthews, Abraham Peirsey, WiUiam Claiborne, 
William Tucker, Jabez Whitaker, Edward Blaney, and 
William Ferrar his present Council in Virginia (with very 
much the same powers as previously granted in the royal 
commissions since 1624), and " WiUiam Claiborne to be 
our Secretarie of State, of and for the said Colony and 
Plantation of Virginia." There had been no secretary of 
state in Virginia since the death of Christopher Davison. 
Claiborne was the first to hold that office under the 
crown. In the case of Yeardley's death, John Harvey 
was to succeed him. K Harvey then died, West succeeded 
him. In the Council the majority ruled. 

April 29, the king and his Privy Council issued instruc- 
tions to the new governor of Virginia, who sailed shortly 
thereafter on board the Anne in consort with the James. 

The Virgin, of Southampton, had arrived in Virginia on 
April 2, with letters from the Privy Council of November 
3, 1625, which were gratifying to the officials in Virginia, 
and on April 16, the governor and Council sent their reply 
by the returning ship : " Thanking his Majestic for his 
gratious pleasure that those complained of should have no 
hand in the government either in Virginia or in England ; 
suggesting that the ordering of affairs in Virginia should 
be left to the Governor and Council, with the advise (in 
speciall cases) of the General Assembly ,^^ etc. 

On May 27, the governor and Council again wrote to 
the Privy Council, in which letter they attribute the slow 
growth of the plantation to the government being divided 
between England and Virginia, and again suggest that cer- 
tain colonial affairs should " be whollie at the disposal of 
the Governor, Counsell and General Assembly in Vir- 
ginia.'' This letter with " The Titles and Estate of the 
several owners of Lands and other perticulars required " by 
the Privy Council were taken to England by Sir Francis 
Wyatt, who probably sailed before the arrival of Yeardley, 
leaving Captain Francis West as acting governor. This, 



JUNE, 1624 — FEBRUARY, 1627 647 

however, is based on circumstantial evidence only. I do 
not know exactly when Wyatt left or Yeardley arrived. 

Sir George Yeardley left England in May, with permis- 
sion to stop in the Bermudas if he deemed it advisable to 
do so, and arrived in Virginia prior to October 19, 1626, 
with the royal commissions and instructions which finally 
completed the transfer of the colony from the company to 
the crown. He was present at the fall term of the quarter 
court held in James City, October 19-25, 1626. In Feb- 
ruary, 1627, he was issuing the first grants to lands under 
the crown. The last under the company were issued by 
Wyatt, in February, 1625. 

Sir George Yeardley was buried on November 23, 1627, 
and Captain Francis West was elected on the next day to 
succeed him.* 

Sir Francis Wyatt, the governor, maintained the original 
popular form of government so far as possible during the 
period of transfer, — from February, 1625, to the arrival 
of Yeardley in 1626, — and for this he is deserving of all 
praise. " The General Assembly," under the original form, 
consisted of the governor. Council, and House of Bur- 
gesses ; but the burgesses (the popular feature) could not 
be legally elected during this period, as the authority for 
doing so had been canceled. However, Governor Wyatt, 
his Council, and the leading citizens (probably selected or 
elected for the purpose) held conventions, or informal 
meetings, to consider important matters, under the title — 
as used in the documents issued by them — of " The Gov- 
ernor, Council, and Colony of Virginia assembled to-geiher" 

^ It will have been seen that in of his estate in Virginia and else- 
many respects none occupied a more where ; he mentions his * now wife,' 
prominent position among our found- Jane daughter of Sir Henry Davye 
ers than Yeardley and West. It is [Davyes or Davis ?], and his son (by 
not to my present purpose to add to a former wife) Francis, then under 
The Genesis biographies ; but I wish age." He returned to Virginia in 
to give here a correction and addition 1630, and probably died there. His 
to that of Captain Francis West. He will was proven at London, on May 8, 
wrote his will on December 27, 1629, 1634. 
while he was in England, " disposing 



648 RESUMED BY THE CROWN 

which was evidently as " popular " a body as " the General 
Assembly." 

After the transfer, Yeardley also maintained the original 
idea as far as possible, leading matters being considered in 
the original quarter courts held in January, April, July, 
and October, at Jamestown ; but there was no " General 
Assembly." Finally, however, in the fall of 1627, Charles 
I., in reply to the repeated memorials, petitions, letters, 
etc., from Virginia yielded his consent to the continuance 
of the House of Burgesses, and soon after sent his written 
instructions to that effect to the officials in Virginia, by 
William Capps, who arrived at Jamestown on March 4, 
1628. A few days after this. Governor West ordered the 
first election of burgesses under the crown, and summoned 
" the General Assembly " to meet at Jamestown on March 
20, " to consult and advice concerning the several parts 
and points of his Majestie's Letter and to answer the same 
in every particular." This body met on time, and, after a 
due consideration of this matter, on April 5, " The hum- 
ble answere of the Governor, and Councell, togeather with 
the Burgesses of the several plantations assembled in Vir- 
ginia, unto his Majestie's letter concerning our tobacco and 
other commodities," was signed by Governor West, five of 
the Council, and thirty-one burgesses. 

The government of the colony by the company had now 
come to an end, but under Divine Providence the most de- 
sirable portion of the form of government designed by the 
company for the colony remained in force under the admin- 
istration of the old Founders, and they " remained sedulous 
and united towards the right ends declared." 



RESUME 

From the beginning, James I. had taken great interest 
in the colonial movement. It was his ambition to make 
the American colonies " the monuments of his reign." It 
was natural for him to wish to resume their government 
himself, and to have them established by his histories on 
the foundation designed by himself rather than on a foun- 
dation which had supplanted his, — which he regarded as 
an encroachment on his royal prerogative, and as having 
been designed by "his greatest enemy" in "a seminary 
of sedition." 

Although we cannot know what would have been the 
result if James I. had lived to formulate his new charter 
and new form of government for the colony, and to put 
them into operation, we can rest assured that he would 
not have permitted any of the popular ideas of the form 
of government originated by Sir Edwin Sandys to remain 
in force, as Charles I., under the divine Providence which 
was shaping our end, finally to a large extent did do. It 
is true that Charles I. took the government from the com- 
pany in England; but he finally continued virtually the 
same form. The governor, Council, treasurer, secretary of 
state, etc., " the Council of State " in Virginia, formerly 
elected by the company in England, were continued, but 
were appointed by the crown. The House of Burgesses, 
the magistrates, and other officers previously chosen in Vir- 
ginia, were continued (with some changes, chiefly as to the 
mode of paying salaries ^), and continued to be elected as 

^ The public lands which were in- may be," reverted to the crown, and 
tended to be instrumental " in easing salaries were paid out of sundry taxes, 
the inhabitants of all taxes as much as 



650 RESUME 

formerly by the people. And "the General Assembly,'* 
as previously constituted under the company, was continued 
under the crown. Thus again, as from time to time from 
the beginning, we see the manifest destiny that was shaping 
our end. 

Some have dated the origin of the republican idea in 
Virginia from the Stamp Act of 1765 ; others from the 
changing of the capital in 1748; others from Bacon's re- 
bellion in 1676, and others from the first General Assem- 
bly in 1619. But the seed was really sown by the petitions 
from the planters in Virginia and by the reports from Vir- 
ginia made in 1608 by Archer, Martin, Newport, Radcliffe, 
and others, which caused the managers of the enterprise 
in England to condemn "the King's faction producing 
form of government," and to procure in lieu of the royal 
charter of 1606 the popular charters of 1609 and 1612, 
which finally afforded Sir Edwin Sandys and other progres- 
sive thinkers the opportunity for developing their liberal 
ideas of government in a new nation in the new world. 
" Sometimes a grain of mustard-seed proves a great tree." 
The popular charters enabled them to plant the seed, and 
enabled the seed to germinate. The seedling, after being 
fostered in England under the superior ideas of the ad- 
vanced statesmen of that transition period, continued to 
grow into the political system of the new nation until 
our forefathers could rest under its shade, and under its 
expanding branches the sons of the cavahers learned to 
defend the Hberties of the subject from the encroachments 
of the crown. 

The House of Burgesses at once appealed to the minds 
of our people, and, as their chosen representative, became 
the main stem of this growing tree of liberty. It furnished 
the stamina which removed the royal governor. Sir John 
Harvey, and elected John West in his place. It was the 
nursery presided over by " Bacon the Rebel " for a brief 
term when the tree was young. It was the " seminary of 
sedition " in which the voices of Henry and other patriots 



RESUME 651 

were heard appealing more and more boldly for "American 
freedom." It was the university from which " Washington 
the Rebel " went forth to take the government of the col- 
onies from the crown, to restore it to the people, and to 
" found a free popular state there ; " which was the object 
of Sir Edwin Sandys ^ when drafting the popular charters 
and when sending " our Magna Charta " and the May- 
flower to our shores ; when planting the seed that James I. 
wished to destroy, " which has risen and cleft the soil and 
grown a mass of spanless bulk, and lays on every side a 
thousand arms and rushes to the sun." 

Our founders were mortals, and their acts have remained 
obscured in the histories of their action, but the principles 
which sustained them were immortal ; and although James 
I. ehminated from the page of contemporary history the 
record of the inspirations which shaped the ends of this 
movement, these great principles in the onward march of 
man could not be eliminated from the page of time. They 
were beyond the control of kings. Our patriotic fore- 
fathers, against the protest of the crown of Great Britain, 
and of the party in America still holding to the royal 
views, over a hundred years ago indorsed the method for 
settling America designed by our real founders. And to- 
day as a republic we rest on the foundation of civil and 
religious liberty shaped by those who managed the business, 
" after the alteration," under the popular charters of 1609 
and 1612. Hence, we are now citizens of a free " popular 

1 It is interesting to note the con- New England Historical and Genealogi- 

nections between the Sandys and cal Register, 1891, p. 69. The fact that 

Washington families. Robert Sandys, Washington descended from Nicholas 

a nephew of Sir Edwin Sandys, mar- Martian, who signed all of the docu- 

ried Alice, daughter of Mr. Lawrence ments (A-G) sent from Virginia in 

Washington, of Sulgrave, and aunt to 1624 by John Pountis or Poyutz, is 

Colonel John Washington, the emi- also of especial interest. He signed 

grant ancestor of " the father of his his name Nicolas MarLier, and I be- 

country." And Samuel Sandys, a lieve him to have been Nicolas de la 

grand-nephew of Sir Edwin, married Marlier, one of the Walloons who had 

the widow of the celebrated Colonel proposed going to Virginia in 1621, 

Henry Washington. See The Genesis although his name is generally written 

of the United States, p. 996, and The Martian in the Virginia records. 



652 RESUME 

state," with our histories no longer under the censorship 
of a Privy Council, and our consciences no longer subser- 
vient to the royal prerogative. 

Ovu" history should now be based on the authentic records 
of the company, which were then suppressed by the Council, 
rather than on the accounts of writers then Hcensed by the 
crown. 

The nation should no longer rest on the mythical foun- 
dation of a mythical founder under the crown, who pub- 
lished the dispatches in his own interest, but on the broad 
basis on which it was really originated by the broad- 
minded " managers of the business " under the company, 
who in the interest of posterity planted the first repubhc 
in America, which was the genesis of the United States. 
And we should never sing our national hymn without due 
reverence for the Divine Providence which guided them, or 
without thanking them in our hearts. 

♦* My country ! 't is of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died ! 
Land of the pilgrims' pride 1 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring ! 



« Our fathers' God I to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing : 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God, our King J " 



INDEX 



INDEX 



The names of persons and places are indexed in alphabetical order, as are subjects generally ; but 
scattered items pertaining to various subjects are collected togetlier under proper comprehensive 
headings, which are arranged alphabetically. 

See Agriculture, Armor, Arms, Building, Charters, Commodities, Corporations, Courts, Emigrants, 
Evidences, Fauna, First, Fish, Flora, Fortifications, Free, French, Government, Indians, Lands, 
Law, Liberty, Manufacture, Medicine, Mines, New England, Politics, Popular, Public, Religion, 
Ships, Spanish, Suits, Tobacco, Virginia. 

* Brief sketches of these wUl be found in The Genesis of the United States. 



Abandonment of Virginia, 127, 140, 159, 
170, 182, 185, ISO, 196, 198, 200, 202. 

Abbot, *George, archbishop, member of 
Privy CouncU, 180, 248, 256, 265, 271, 
342, 386, 433, 477, 526, 530, 538, 555, 
636, 637 ; Jeffrey, 172; *Mauriee, 268, 
274, 334, 339, 363, 366, 382, 476. 

Abdy, *Anthony, 268, 334, 339, 382, 476. 

Ackland, Robert, 617. 

Accomac, 421; "Achamack," 463; 
" Acomack," 420. 

Acts of the General Assembly, 361, 364, 
365 ; of Parliament, 393, 394. 

Adams, Captain , 92, 134, 138-140, 

144, 149-151, 160, 185, 189, 202 ; Rob- 
ert, 571, 580. . 

Addison, Thomas, 452, 629. 
. Adventurers, 79, 159, 182, 235, 250, 350, 
366, 369, 614, 615 ; see Virginia Com- 
pany. 

iElford, iElfred, etc., see Elfrith. 

Agriculture, pertaining to, 226, 466, 626, 
etc. ; bread crops, 205 ; clearing ground, 
374 ; crops, 472. 474, .561, 566 ; drought, 
283 ; gardens, 446, 561, 578, 626 ; hay, 
278 ; hortvards, 561 ; husbandmen, 
284, 342 ; husbandry, 277, 374 ; plant- 
ing corn and tobacco, 226, 466 ; plant- 
ing silk-grass, 373 ; ploughs, 260, 277, 
284, 311 ; soil of Virginia, 35, 284, 577 ; 
tilling ground, 373 ; vineyards, 479, 
626 ; working in their fields, 446 ; see 
Commodities ; Corn ; Emigrants ; Farm- 
ers ; Fauna ; Flora ; Harvests ; Hun- 
dreds ; Lands (public, etc.); Negroes; 
Plantations ; Tobacco ; Vines, etc. 

Aiken's Swamp, 322. 

Alas, M. de las, 88. 

Alcmena, 221. 

Alden, Robert,, 498. 

Alexander, *Sir William, 435. 

Alford, Mr. , 402. 



Algemoune Fort, 108, 113, 116, 126, 133- 

136, 139, 149, 150, 152, 155, 158, 190. 
Algiers, 363, 367. 
Algonquins, 194. 
Allen, *Edward, 482. 
AUington, *OUes, 622. 
All Saints Bay, 88. 
Alnut, Thomas, 621. 
Alonso (Indian), 88, 89, 111-113. 
Amadis de Gaul, 67. 
America, passim, 1-3, 21-23, 166, 292, 

399, 404, 440. 
Ammunition, see under Arms. 
Amsterdam, 271, 380, 410, 431, 4.50. 
Anacostan Lidians, 474, 507, 508, 567; 

Anacostines, 472. 
Andrews, Captain, 297, 298 ; Joakim, 

622 ; Mr. , 386. 

Anglo-Saxon, xii, xix, xx, 20, 51, 143, 

etc. 
Animals, see Fauna. 
Annis, Francis, 416. 
Anthony (Antony), Arthur, 619 ; *Dr. 

Francis, 251, 339, 382, 386, 454, 460. 
Apachisco, 204 ; Apachaniken, 515 ; 

Apochankano, 502, 503 ; see Opoehan- 

kano, etc. 
Apamu-tiku. 194, 195 ; Apamutica, 194 ; 

Apomatucke, 619 ; Apomatuckes, 475 ; 

Appamatuck, 136 ; Appomattox, 25, 

172, 194, 195, 209, 210, 226, 313, 467, 

516, 618; Apummactokes, 473. 
Apsley, Sir Allen, 178. 
Arahatec, 29 ; Arahatecoh, 29 ; Arrahat- 

tock, 308, 314 ; Arsahattocks, 151 . 
Archbishops of Canterbury, see Richard 

Bancroft and George Abbot ; of York, 

see Edwin Sandys and Tobias Matthew. 
Archer, *Captain Gabriel, x, xii, 23, 28, 

53-56, .58, 62, 67, 71, 73, 74, 92, 94-96, 

108, 113, 118, 119, .353, 650 ; John, 353. 
Archer's Hope, 25, 26, 287, 621. 



656 



INDEX 



Argall, *Jolin, 245 ; *Samuel, 60, 83, 86, 
91, 94, 96, 98, 105, 118, 127, 128, 131, 
132, 135, 137, 138, 146, 172-176, 178, 
179, 189-195, 197, 199, 202-204, 206, 
213, 214, 217, 222, 224, 229, 233, 239, 
243-245, 247, 249, 251, 253-260, 267, 
272, 273, 277-288, 298, 300, 305, 309, 
310, 312, 317, 323, 324, 331, 333-337. 
339-341, 351, 358, 359, 362, 363, 368, 
384, 391, 392, 409, 410, 444, 445, 447, 
448, 462, 489, 524, 554, 590, 620, 631. 

Argall's Gift, 308, 314, 323 ; town, 256, 
287. 

" Ariel," 114, 115. 

Armenian, Martin the, 554. 

Armitage, Samuel, 274. 

Armor, defensive, 171, 172, 618, 620, 623- 
626, 628 ; brigantines, 485 ; buff coats, 
172, 620 ; coats of mail, 172, 485, 491, 
620, 623, 625, 626 ; of steel, 172, 620, 
625, 626 ; of plate, 485, 620 ; corselets, 
172, 623-625, 628; headpieces, 172, 
620, 625; jackets, 172, 620, 625; 
quilted coats, 171, 172, 620, 623 ; shirts 

' of mail, 171, 172, 485 ; skulls of iron, 
485 ; targets, 172, 624. 

Armorers, 172. 

Arms, pertaining to : Offensive, 276, 282, 
471, 475, 481, 484-486, 489, 500-502, 
611, 618, 620, 623-625, 628. Artillery 
for the forts, 172, 276; bases, 628; 
brass pieces, 453, 469 ; chambers, 628 ; 
culverins, 200; demi-cnlverins, 299, 
514 ; whole-culverins, 514 ; fauconets, 
628; great ordnance, 514; minions, 
299 ; murtherers, 628 ; murdering 
pieces, 485 ; ordnance, 623, 626, 628. 
Powder-arms, 172 ; fowling - pieces, 
308, 581, 582 ; muskets, 172 ; match- 
locks, 172, 623-625; petronels, 172, 
620, 623, 624; pistols, 172, 485, 620, 
623-625 ; snaphaunce-pieces, 172, 281, 
618, 620, 623-626, 628. Side-arms, 
172; brown bills, 485; daggers, 172, 
485, 620, 628 ; halberds, 485 ; hangers, 
172, 620, 628 ; rapiers, 172, 624, 628 ; 
swords, 172, 618, 620, 623-626, 628. 
Ammunition, 276, 278, 281, 282 ; muni- 
tion, 484 ; lead, 618, 620, 623-626, 628 ; 
match, 623, 624; powder, 281, 469, 
485, 501, 502, 568, 606, 610, 618, 620, 
623-626, 628 ; shot, 568, 625, 626, 628. 

Armstrong, Archy, 273. 

Arostequi, 161. 

Arundell, Earl of j see Thomas Howard. 

Arundell, John, 252 ; *Peter, 100, 252, 
355, 462, 512, 513, 624; *Thomas, 
Lord, 65, 79, 125. 

Askew, William, 613. 

Assacomoit, 9. 

Aston, Robert, 613. 

Atkins, Mr. — — , 514. 

Atkinson, *Richard, 63. 

Atlantic, 3, 143, 146, 474. 

Attorney-Generals, see E. Coke (1606) ; H. 



Hobart (1606-1613) ; F. Bacon (1613- 

1617) ; H. Yelverton (1617-1620) ; T. 

Coventry (1621-1624). 
Aucher (Archer), *Sir Anthony, 162, 245. 
Auditors, 268, 333-335, 339, 342, 350, 382, 

422, 477. 
Austin, Ambrose, 386. 
Austria, House of, 592. 
Axaean, 88. 
Ayers, Mr., 428, 
Ayres, Thomas, 629. 
Azores, 21, 128, 138, 281, 282, 284, 325. 

Back river, 408. 

Bacon, *Sir Francis, 17, 66, 67, 165, 215, 

268, 387, 389, 390, 393, 592 ; Henry, 

269, 298 ; Sir Nathaniel, 129. 
Bacon's rebellion, 650. 
Baffin, *William, 221. 
Bagge, *James, 10, 382. 

Bagwell, Henry, 613, 619; Thomas, 613. 

Bahama channel, 87 ; islands, 92, 370. 

Bailey (Bayley, etc.), John, 413 ; Mary, 
621 ; Temperance, 619 ; William, 374, , 
613, 619. 

Baker, *Sir Richard, 282 ; Robert, 413. 

Baldwin, Francis, 271 ; Hugh, 613 ; John, 
513. 

Ball, *Richard, 484. 

Balloting box, 306, 315, 356. 

Balmford, or Bamford, Mr., 365, 441. 

Baltimore, Lord, see George Calvert. 

Bancroft, George, 328; *Richard, arch- 
bishop, 12. 

Bank of England, 275. 

Bannington, William, 416. 

Barber, Gabriel, 244, 263, 334, 406, 481, 
496, 528, 537, 538, 559. 

Bargrave, Rev. Dr., 288 ; Dorcas, 250 ; 
♦George, 250, 267, 299, 308, 309 ; *John, 
250, 253, 259, 267, 268, 288, 291, 306, 
308, 328, 336, 362, 364, 365, 369, 386, 
414, 446-448, 479, 480. 529, 530, 595, 
610, 628 ; *Rev. Thomas, 288, 631. 

Barkeley, see Berkeley. 

Barker, Edmond, 561 ; Robert, 394. 

Barkham, Anthony, 622 ; *Sii' Edward, 
482, 486. 

Barlie, Captain John, 16, 48. 

Barnstable, 363, 377, 461, 500. 

Barrett, *William, 366. 

Bartle, *Peter, 350. 

Barwick, Captain Thomas, 474, 477, 505. 

Basse, Nathaniel, 288, 414, 419, 571, 580, 
622. 

Basse's choice, 580, 622. 

Bateman, Ralph, 484 ; *Robert, 274, 351, 
476, 477, 513. 

Batt, Michael, 613. 

Baugh, Thomas, 413. 

Baynham, John, 621, 622. 

Baynum, Richard, 383, 538. 

Beale, the refiner, 45, 46. 

Beaufort (S. C), 88. 

Bedford, Earl of, see Edward Russell. 



INDEX 



657 



Beheathland, Captain Robert, 392. 

Bell, *Robert, 476. 

Benn, Sir Anthonv, 273. 

Bennet, David, 369; Edward, 396, 398- 
402, 468, 475, 477, 490, 503, 526, 533, 
629 ; Edward's brother, 504 ; Nicholas, 
116;. -Richard, 629; Robert, 629; Sir 
Thomas, 273, 351 ; Rev. Wm., 463, 631. 

Bentley, William, 022. 

Berbloek, WiUiam, 252, 265, 333, 352, 
364, 523, 528, 535. 

Beiiston, Theophilus. 613, 619. 

Berkeley, *Edward, 613, 617 ; Elizabeth, 
444 ; John, 365, 454, 456, 46.3-465, 467, 
628 ; Lady, 396, 629 ; *Sir Maurice, 14, 
142 ; Maurice, 454, 463, 500, 503, 628; 
*Richard, 297, 300, 345, 371, 388, 414. 

Berkeley, Hundred, 297, 345, 355, 364, 
371-374, 397, 413, 414, 470, 536 ; plan- 
tation, 345, 559 ; town, 345, 414. 

Berket, James, 629. 

Bermuda city, 194, 204, 205, 209, 210, 
228, 238, 240, 255, 258, 467 ; farmers, 
194, 205, 210 ; Hundred, 194, 210, 227, 
238, 240, 258, 260, 278, 314, 418, 467. 

Bermudas, or Somers Islands, 69, 86, 95, 
97, 114, 116, 132, 135, 139, 141, 153, 
160, 163, 168, 171, 177, 180, 182, 185, 
187-189, 196-200, 202, 217, 220, 231, 
2.36, 270, 276, 291, 325, 326, 333, 341, 
360, 370, 391, 407, 426, 440, 445, 461, 
464, 472, 474, 475, 478, 500, 507, 516, 
533, 592, 598, 647. 

Bernard, *Capt. John, 333, 477, 478, 594. 

Berry, John, 622. 

Best, Christopher, 512 ; Ellis, 16 ; Thomas, 
513 ; William, 570, 593. 

Biard, P., 145, 178, 191-193, 212, 213. 

Bickley, Francis, 498. 

Biddolph, Anthony, 369. 

Biggs, Richard, 498, 571, 579, 613, 619. 

Bill, John, 394. 

BUUard, John, 617. 

Bills of adventure, 103, 104, 245, etc. ; see 
Land shares. 

Bing, William, 477. 

Bingham, Captain, 386. 

Bingley, Captain, 18. 

Biondi, 184. 

Birchett {see Berket), Richard, 374. 

Bird, William, 416. 

Bishops (The), 24«, 335, 384; see Lord 
Bishop. 

Blackall, John, 245. 

Blackfriars, 202, 512. 

Blact«'ell, Francis, 271, 272, 285. 

Blair, Rev. James (1692), 213. 

Blake, Walter, 613. 

Blanchard, John, 371. 

Bland, *John, 273, 419, 451, 527, 528, 535, 
537; Richard, 338. 

Blayney, or Blaine, Edward, 459, 460, 502, 
571, 579, 621, 625, 646. 

Blockhouses, 132, 138, 150, 209, 211, 226, 
257, 420. 



Blore, Blow, or Blower, John, 613, 617, 

627. 
Blue Ridge, 28, 34, 58, 69. 
Blunt, Humfrey, 133. 
Blunt Point, 133, 420, 451, 501, 502, 622. 
Bluett, or Blewitt, Captain, 382, 410, 441, 

442. 
Blythe, John, 6,30. 

Boats, etc., 611, 618, 620, 623-625, 628. 
Bohemia. Queen of, 542. x 

Bohun, *Dr. Lawrence, 132, 137, 336, 354, 

391, 392, 416, 426, 628. 
Boiling, Robert, of Chellowe, 247. 
Bolton, Rev. Francis, 426, 453, 567, 

631 ; Richard, 613, 617, 624; William, 

271. 
Bond, *Martin, 526. 
Bonnell, Bonoel, etc., Anthony, 512; 

John, 488, 489 ; Mr., 406, 422, 429, 501. 
Books, 11, 460, 582. 
Booth, Reynold, 132, 613. 
Boothby, Mr., 498 ; Richard, 336. 
Bordeaux, 13, 19, 20. 
Boroughs, or minor corporations, 377-379, 

579, 580 ; see Corporations ; House of 

Burgesses, under Government ; Lands, 

divisions of, etc. 
Borrows, see Burrows. 
Bouldin, Mary, 623; Thomas, 375, 613, 

623. 
Boulton, see Bolton. 
Bourchier, Sir Henry, 521, 585 ; *Sir John, 

629. 
Bourne, Robert, 619. 
Boventon, Alexander, 416. 
Bowater, John, 445. 
Bow Church, 451. 
Bowyer's Bay, 309. 
Box, Henry, 369. 

Boyle, John, 570, 593; Richard, 512. 
Boys, John, 314, 318; Luke, 308, 571, 

579 ; Mrs., 511. 
Braems, Jacob, 297, 298. 
Brandon, see Martin's Brandon. 
Breewood, Thomas, 624. 
Brett, Captain, 334 ; James, 267. 
Brewer, John, 508. 
Brewster, *Captain Edward, 127, 128, 131, 

135, 136, 150, 280, 282, 283, 334-3.37, 

339, 390, 525 ; Richard, 570, 580, 593, 

621 ; William, 33, 34, 335 ; WiUiam the 

Pilgrim Father, 262-264, 283, 300, 335, 

341, 4.53. 
Briars, Jeffery, 116. 
Brick, see Manufactures- 
BrideweU, 296, 346. 
Bridgewater, 316. 
Briggs, *Henry, of Oxford, 198, 333, 382. 

422, 460, 487 ; Henry, of Virginia, 514 ; 

Robert, 362 ; Thomas, 514. 
Bristol, 9, 10, 345, 370, 371, 373, 477. 
British Museum, 162. 
Broadsides, see Evidences. 
Broadway, Alexander, 413 ; Giles, 413. 
Brochero, Don Diego, 181. 



658 



INDEX 



Brook, or Brooks, *Christopher, 187, 216, 
343, 346, 363, 364, 367, 385, 404, 410; 
George, 451 ; *Sir John, 395, 497, 519, 
629 ; John, 28 ; William, 024. 

Brooke, Lord, see F. Greville. 

Browne, Anthony, 364, 416 ; master, 132 ; 
Mr., 482; OUver,28; Robert, 339, 619. 

Bruce, Thomas, Lord, 527. 

Brudenell, *Edmond and Francis, 445. 

Buchan, 629. 

Buck, Mara, 158; *Rev. Richard, 116, 
117, 129, 158, 204, 229, 316, 621, 631. 

Buckeridge, Nicholas, 336, 590. 

Buckler, Andrew, 105. 

Building, pertaining to, 226, 373, 374, 430, 
466, 474, 611, 618, 620, 623-627; arti- 
ficers, 128, 260 ; bricklayers, 342, 463 ; 
bridges to land goods on, 254, 255 ; car- 
penters, 342, 403 ; dwelling-houses, 618, 
620, 623-626 ; governor's house, 323 ; 
house for silk, 623 ; house for silk- 
worms, 626 ; merchant stores, 623 ; 
Opechancanough's house, 466 ; saw- 
mills, 454 ; sawing, 466 ; stone, store, 
and tobacco houses, 620, 623, 624 ; water 
and wind mills, 463, 620 ; see Boats ; 
Churches ; College ; Fortifications ; 
Manufacture ; Medicine ; Schools ; Ship- 
building; etc. 

Buisseaux, Sieur de, 217. 

Bulkeley, *Sir Richard, 393, 444, 629 ; 
Thomas, 444, 629. 

BuU (see Ball), Richard, 484. 

Bureau of Ethnology, 112. 

Burgesses, see House of Burgesses, under 
Government, the Company's foiin of. 

Burgh, or Brough, *John, 527, 533. 

Burnham, John, 622 ; William, 497- 

Burras (Burrows), Anne, 70. 

Burrows, John, 621. 

"Burrows Hill," 621. ^ 

Burton, Christopher, 371. 

Butler, Edward, 482 ; Rev. George, 430 ; 
*Captain Nathaniel, 337, 359, 368, 461, 
464, 475, 478, 495, 498, 500, 506, 507, 
518, 519, 523, 524, 541, 560, 569-572. 

Button, *Sir Thomas, 165, 198, 593. 

Caesar, *Sir Julius, master of the rolls, 

433, 480, 491, 492, 526, 538, 550, 555. 

CaBsar's Commentaries, 67. 

Cage, John, 350; Thomas, 613, 619. 

Caldicott, Matthias, 498. 

'•Caliban," 116. 

California, 257. 

Calvert, *George, secretary of state, 299, 
345, 388, 403, 427, 428, 433, 436, 449, 
450, 476, 489, 524, 526, 534-536, 538, 
550, 555, 634 ; Lord Baltimore (1632), 
60.3. 

Calvin, reformer, 408. 

Cambridge (Eng.), 260, 273, 317, 550. 

Camohan (Indian), 511. 

Canada, 199, 282, 290, 297, 309, 407, 509, 
516, 566, 581, 583 ; river of, 60, 164. 



Canaries (Islands), 21-24, 83, 86, 92, 149, 

164. 
Candle, to sell by the, 299. 
Canne, Delphebus, 500, 514, 516, 566. 
Canning, *William, 168, 274, 333, 384, 

444, 513, 554, 589, 590. 
Canterbury, 222, 275, 288, 386, 530. 
" Capa Howasicke," 58. 

Cape Charles, 132, 135, 175, 229, 379, 
421; Cod, 135, 349, 379, 385, 387, 
403, 407, 425, 438,599; Comfort, 25, 
128 ; Engano, 90 ; Fear, 90, 110 ; Finis- 
t4re, 23 ; of Good Hope, 442, 443 ; Hat- 
teras, 90 ; Henry, 25, 31, 59, 90, 128, 
132 ; La Warre, 135 ; Race, 376 ; San 
Roman, 87, 90, 110, 112; Trafalgar, 
90. 

Cape Verde Islands, 21. 

Cape-merchant, 42, 239, 279, 290, 311. 

Capps, WiUiam, 314, 318, 508, 514, 613, 
624, 648. 

" Caracoes," 399. 

Cardenas, Diego de, 88. 

Careless, Robert, 481. 

Carew, *George, Lord, 52, 104, 115, 234, 
433, 526, 543, 547, 550, 593, 640; 
Gome (?), 16. 

Carey (Carew, Gary), Mr., 401 ; *Sir Phi- 
Up, 369. 

Carleill, *Captain Christopher, 1. 

Carieton, *Sir Dudley. 47, 121, 161, 181, 
184, 187, 196, 198, 214, 216, 234, 247, 
262, 264, 266, 290, 294, 326, 356, 427, 
428, 445, 449. 450, 485, 489, 522, 598. 

Caron, *Sir Noel de, 144, 145, 198. 

Carr, John, 619 ; *Robert, Eaxl of Somer- 
set, 232. 

Cartaya, J. R. de, 88. 

Carter, Christopher, 116 ; Francis. 333, 
382, 383, 406, 427, 430. 434, 444, 445, 
451, 452, 480, 482, 484, 497; GUes, 
413 ; James, 497, 499, 536. 568, 640 ; 
John, 613, 619, 622. 

Cartwright, *Abraham, 366. 

Carver, John, 252, 262-264, 272, 425. 

Casson, George, 54. 

Castle, Roger, 429. 

Castle (Spain), 87. 

Caswell, Richard, 333, 391, 451, 490, 537, 
538, 595. 

Causey, Nathaniel, 571, 579, 613, 619, 
620 ; Thomasine, 613. 

Cavell, Mr., 561 : Matthew, 348. 

Cavendish, *William, Earl of Devonshire, 
244, 365 ; *William Lord, 348. 367, 400, 

445, 477, 478, 495, 496, 518-522, 526, 
531, 538,542, 546, 594, 597, 600, 609; 
confinement of, 526. 

Cayagua Bav, 88, 110. 

Cecil, *Sir Edward, 160, 162, 356, 386, 
402, 593 ; *Robert, Eari of SaHsbury, 
secretary of state, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 
16-19, 29, -33, 34, 43-52, 62, 76, 84. 105, 
123, 128, 132, 145. 148, 151, 153-155, 
159, 161-165, 170, 177, 180 ; *Thomas. 



INDEX 



659 



Earl of Exeter, 73 ; *William, Earl of 
Salisbury, 334. 

Census of Virginia, 55, 58, 68, 71, 97, 
109, 129, 138, 153, 229, 277, 285, 308, 
309, 328, 329, 375, 381, 415, 464, 500, 
570, 611-627. 

Cervantes, 2. 

Chaderton or Chatteiton, *Dr. Lawrence, 
245. 

Challons, Chalinge, Challoner, etc.. Cap- 
tain Henry, 9, 13, 15, 18-20, 51 ; his 
crew, 63. 

Chaloner, Francis, 369; Mr., 366; *Sir 
Thomas, 14. 

Chamberlaine, *John, 47, 121, 161, 179, 
196, 214, 216, 234, 247, 264, 266, 282, 
290, 294, 356, 485, 522, 598 ; Mr., 390. 

Chambers, *George, 333, 386. 

Champernoun, Mr., 490. 

Chancellors of the Exchequer, see J. Caesar 
(1606-1614) ; F. Greville (1614-1621) ; 
K. Weston (1621-1624) ; of the Duchy 
of Lancaster, H. May (1618-1624). 

Chanco, an Jjidian, 468, 511, 514. 

Chandler, Joan, 132, 613. 

Chaplain, Isaac, 571, 579, 613, 619. 

Chaplain's Choice, 579, 619, 620, 627. 

Chapman, Francis, 408, 613, 621 ; Thomas, 
613, 624. 

Chard, Josiah or Joshua, 613, 619. 

Charing Cross, 292. 

Charles City, 210, 238, 240, 254, 308,313, 
314, 322, 371, 373, 377, 411, 421, 442, 
443, 467, 500, 545, 546, 579, 617-620. 

Charles Hundred, 238, 253, 308. 

Charleston (S. C), 88, 110. 

Cham, Thomas, 416. 

Charters : the royal charter of 1606, 6-8, 
178, 349, 360, 380, 389, 613, 650 ; the 
protests against and alteration of, v, 
vii, xii, 67, 74-76, etc., 263, 614; the 
popular charter of 1609, 74-76, 84-87, 
93, 99, 117, 118, 165-167, 178, 184, 
186, 215, 217, 232, 233, 249, 251, 263, 
329, 332, 384, 603, 613, 614, 637, 639 ; 
the popular charter of 1612, 139, 141, 
147, 148, 163, 165-167, 171, 178, 184, 
186, 215, 217, 249, 251, 263, 329, 384, 
613, 616, 637, 639 ; the popular char- 
ter of 1621, to be confirmed by Act 
of Parliament, 390, 391, 393, 394, 396, 
397, 425, 434-439, 441 ; the company 
not willing to infringe their charter 
rights, S54, 366, 367, etc. ; popular 
charters to be declared void, 436, 439, 
448, 475, 479, 521, 531, 532, 540-542, 
547-549, 551, etc. ; the crown requests 
the company to surrender their popular 
charters, 550, 552, 572-575, 581 ; the 
company declines to do so, 552-554, 
585, 586, 589, 599, 637,639 ; the plant- 
ers exhorted not to surrender, 560; the 
company determine to defend their 
charter rights, 586-588 ; the suit : the 
company vs. tiie crown, 585-591, 595- 



599, 601, 602, 633, 637, 638 ; popular 
charters " overthrown," 601, 602, 633, 
634 ; James I. resumes the government, 
designing a new charter, etc., 603, 633- 
635, 638-641, 649; Charles L, peti- 
tioned to for a new patent to be eon- 
firmed by Act of Parliament, and to 
grant liberty of General Assemblies in 
Virginia, 643 ; see Government ; Magna 
Charta. 

Chawanock River, 463. 

Cheasley, Mr., 560. 

Chechohomynies (River), Check-a-homa- 
nies (Indians), see Chickahominy, 

Chedle, Richard, 430. 

Cheeke, *Sir Thomas, 337. 

Cheeseman, John, 624. 

Chemes-Ford, 48. 

Chesapioc Bay, 23, 25 ; Chesapeake, 60, 
90, 91, 131, 135, 375. 

Cheskacke, .576; Chet- ack, 515; Ches- 
cheack, 475. 

Chester, James, 416, 489, 500 ; Wm., 300. 

Chesterman, Mr., 525. 

Chetle, Richard, 430. 

Chetonly, Robert, 430. 

Chew, John, 571, 5S0, 608, 621. 

Chichester, *Arthur, Lord, 3, 538, 543, 
545, 547, 550, 555, 593, 634. 

Chicohominie, Chicahominy, Chickaho- 
miny, etc.. River, 54. 204, 256, 313, 323, 
462, 618, 620; Chickahominies, Chi- 
quohomini, etc., Indians, 204, 239, 410, 
473, 500, 516. 

Chijaa, 164 ; box, 460. 

Chippoke, Chippoak Creek, 256, 468, 621. 

Chisman, John, 624. 

Chowan River, 463. 

Christ's College, 273, 488. 

Church of England, see England ; of 
Rome, see Rome ; of Virginia, 278, 285, 
320, 477, 481, 630-632; at Henrico, 
209, 308 ; at Jamestown, 129, 150, 254, 
308, 315, 623. 

Cinque Ports, 267. 

City Point, 210, 322. 

Claiborne, or Claybourne, William, 147, 
423, 454, 508, 509, 608, 614, 618, 621- 
623, 639, 646. 

Cl.iik, or Clarke, Edward, 364; George, 
369, 590; *John, 149, 152-154, 161, 
163, 186, 234, 407, 424, 444, 512; 
Katharine, 350 ; William, 477. 

Clay, James, 371 ; John, 613. 

Clement, William, 371. 

Clement's Inn, 629. 

Clerk of the Council, 532. 

Cletheroe, *Christopher, 476. 

Climate of Virginia, vii, xx, 40, 41, 106, 
142-144, 236, 248, 249, 255, 409, 411 ; 
sickness, see under Medicine. 

Clinton, *Henry, 2d Earl of Lincoln, 52 ; 
Theophilus, 4th Earl, 336. 

Clopton, Joyce, 115. 

Clopton Estate, 115, 547. 



660 



INDEX 



Close, Phetiplace, 613, 617. 

Clovell, Eustace, 30. 

Coat of arms for Virginia, 345, 346. 

Cob, or Cobb, , 136 ; Joseph, 613. 

Cobham, Sir John, 629. 

Cockayne, *Sir WiUiam, 348, 366, 

Cocke, or Cocks, John, 629. 

Codrington, *yimon, 233, 235. 

Coke, Mr., of Wedgnock, 83 ; *Sir Ed- 
ward, 6, 398, 402, 436, 595. 

Colby, *Edmond, 406 ; Thomas, 406. 

Cole, John, 371 ; William, 371, 624. 

Coles, Edward, 211. 

College in Vii^nia, 279, 294, 322, 335, 336, 
339, 342, 344, 345, 3.50, 363, 370, 376, 
378, 481, 500, 505; lands, 319, 322, 
336, 345, 347, 370,^376, 378, 505, 617, 
627 ; plantation, 579. 

CoUett, John, 365 ; Thomas, 365. 

CoUingwood, Edward, 382, 425, 527. 

Collins, Susan, 613. 

Coltman, Henry, 240, 613. 

Colson, John, 28. 

Columbus, *Christopher, 21, 24. 

Combe, Nicholas, 413, 414; Thomas, 
365. 

Comet, 22, 293, 296. 

Commissions in Virginia, 257, 287, 426, 
455, 646, 647 ; for dividing lands, 235, 
243 ; for establishing the popular form 
of government, 293 ; to justify the king 
in resuming the government, 534, 546, 
556, 571-584, 601, 608, 609, 630, 636 ; 
to govern Virginia during the royal 
pleasure, 614, 639, 642. 

Commissions in England to justify the 
king in resuming the government, viii, 
ix, 510, 517, 520, 521, 523, 525, 527, 
529, 530, 532, 535, 540-542, 547, 548, 
552, 556, 557, 561, 591, 597, 601, 636, 
637, 639 ; to aid the king after he had 
resumed the government, 634, 635, 637- 
640, 643. 

Commodities of Virginia, 36, 37, 68, 123, 
196, 207, 208, 233, 241, 288, 290, 297, 
311, 320, 346, 378, 379, 384, 417, 433, 
454, 457, 458, 472, 478, 479, 569, 577, 
578 ; black-walnut, 133 ; clapboard, 45, 
133, 457; cotton -wool, 457; cotton 
seed, 418; hides, 256, 257,^277-279; 
hemp, 279, 457 ; licorice, 395 ; masts, 
157, 457, 463 ; pitch and tar, 379, 457, 
463; puccoon, 255; skins, 226, 227; 
raisins, 488 ; terra lemnia, 461 ; tim- 
bers, 35, 153, 379; wainscot, 35, 37, 
45 ; woods of all kinds, 35 ; see Agri- 
culture ; Fauna ; Fish ; Flora ; Furs ; 
Manufacture ; Mines ; Sassafras ; To- 
bacco ; etc. 

Commonwealth of England, xv, 332 ; of 
Virginia, x, xi, 83, 280, 312, 579, 584. 

Communion plate, 285, 286, 344, 345, 370 ; 
"comunyon," 32. 

Comptroller of the Household, see E. Wot- 
ton (1606-1614) ; T. Edmonds (1617- 



1618) ; H. Carey (1618-1621) ; J. Suck- 
ling (1621). 

Constable, William, 494, 644. 

" Constant adventurers," 106. 

Controversy, needless, iii, xxi, 74, 636, 
650-652. 

Conway, Sir Edward, secretary of state, 
480, 482, 492, 521, 523, 524, 535-537, 
539, 540, 543, 547, 549, 553, 554, 593, 
634, 640. 

Cooper (Coopy ?), Anthony, Elizabeth, 
and Jone, 413 ; Samuel and Thomas, 
371 ; Tobias, 427, 629. 

Cope, Sir John, 485 ; *SLr Walter, 9, 43- 
45, 46, 104, 120. 

Copeland, Mr., 523, 537- 

Copland, Rev. Patrick, 428, 442, 444, 451, 
461, 481. 

Coppin, *Sir George, 14, 104, 142. 

Corbe, Juan, 90, 109, 110. 

Cork (Ireland), 459. 

Com (Indian corn, maize, Indian or Vir- 
ginia wheat), 112, 113, 150, 173, 174, 
191, 203, 205, 209, 226-228, 232, 240, 
241, 253, 254, 257, 260, 261, 278, 281, 
297, 299, 308, 310-312, 320, 372, 374, 
409, 417, 420, 463, 475, 566, 567, 569, 

578, 607, 609, 618, 620, 623-626. 
Cornhill, 490. 

Cornish, Ellis, 309 ; George, 430. 

Comwallis, *Sir Charles, 14, 16. 

Coi-porations, Incorporations, or General 
Boroughs, 194, 205, 254, 287, 313, 318, 
319, 321, 322, 324, 385, 386, 467, 468, 

579, 580 ; see Henrico (the city of) ; 
Bermuda City, or Charles City ; James 
City ; Kicowtan, or Elizabeth City ; and 
the Eastern Shore ; see, also, Boroughs ; 
Government; Lands; etc. 

Costa, Antonio de, 234. 

Cottington, *Sir Francis, 148, 234. 

Cotton, *Sir Robert, 232. 

Courteen, Sir Peter, 326, 599, 600; WU- 
Ham. 326. 

Courts : Admiralty, 256, 282, 283, 525 ; 
Common Council of London, 273-275, 
348, 351, 485, 486 ; East India Com- 
pany, 269, 299, 300; King's Bench, 
586-588, 601-603, 634, 635; martial, 
283, 515; Northampton (1635, etc.), 
421 ; Somers Islands Company, 334, 
391 ; Virginia Company, in England, 
imder the popular charters, viii, xv, 
141, 160, 163, 166, 170, 178, 182, 185, 
::87, 188, 199, 200, 216, 217, 220, 223, 
225, 231-233, 235, 237, 243, 245, 251, 
252, 263-269, 271, 273, 277, 289, 290, 
292, 293, 295-297, 299-301, 306, 319, 
333-369, 382-406, 411, 422-452, 456, 
476-498, 517-558, 563, 565, 566, 585- 
600, 609 (" a seminary for a seditious 
parliament," 237 ; " a seminary of sedi- 
tion," viii, XV, 439, 649, 650) ; Vii^nia 
quarterly, 456, 461, 564, 565, 569, 608, 
617, 647, 648 ; monthly, 324, 418, 456, 



INDEX 



661 



461, 617 ; see Government ; Laws ; Vir- 
ginia Company. 
Coventry, *Sir Thomas, 387, 397, 482, 490, 

521, 540, 547-549, 554, 585, 587, 589, 

590, 602, 634. 
Coyse, Cliarles, 371. 
Cowes, The, 127, 159. 
Coxendale, 209, 308, 314, 322, 375, 470, 

482. 
Cradock, or Craddock, Mr., 406 ; William, 

229, 258, 619. 
Crafford, Charles, 430. 
Crakenthorpe, Rev. Richard, 80. 
Cranfield, LioneU, Earl of Middlesex, 

lord treasurer, etc., 272, 292, 410, 420, 

433, 434, 438, 444, 483, 485, 494, 495, 

519, 521, 523, 526, 534, 538-540, 549, 

555, 594, 595, 597, 598, 640. 
Cranmer, Archbishop, 262'; George, 262 ; 

Wmiam, 262, 336, 348, 364, 367, 382, 

386, 477. 
Crashaw, *Ralegh, 472, 504, 571, 580, 613, 

624 ; *Rev. William, 123, 155, 162, 183, 

186, 603. 
Cratford, Charles, 430. 
Craven, Richard, 622. 
Crew, *Sir Randolph, 216 ; Sir Thomas, 

398. 
Cripps, Zachary, 626. 
Croatan (?), 110. 
Croft, or Crofts, Sir Henry, 366; *Sir 

Herbert, 14 ; Richard, 11. 
Croker, Joan, 613. 
Cromwell, *Sir Oliver, 14. 
Crookdeck, John, 28. 
Croshaw, see Crashaw. 
Crosse, Edward, 271. 
Cross, set up, 25, 29, 193. 
Crouch, see Crudge. 
Crowe, *John, 629 ; Mr., 271. 
Crown, The. viii, xvii, xviii, xxii, 1-71, 

118, 147, 216, 220, 630-652 ; see PoU- 

tics. 
Crudge, or Crouch, Hugh, 481 ; Richard, 

259, 481, 619. 
Cuba, 145, 152. 
Cuff, John, 365, 480, 536, 590. 
Cullimore, Mabell, Lady, 245. 
Culpeper, *Sir John, 524 ; *Thomas, 523. 
" Cumanagotta," 399. 
Curls of James River, 172, 194, 195, 617. 
Currents of the ocean, xix, 21, 23, 83, 86, 

110; see Ships. 
Cushman, R., 252, 262, 300, 334. 
"Custom House Key," The, 514. 

Dade, John, 619 ; Mr., 261. 

Dale, *Lady, 145, 291. 300, 629; *Sir 
Thomas, 123, 124, 136-138, 140, 142, 
144, 145, 149-151, 153-158, 160, 162, 
172, 173, 175, 179, 189-195, 198, 200, 
202-205, 208, 210-213, 218, 224-226, 
228-230, 233-240, 242, 246-248, 255, 
262, 299, 300, 312, 313, 318, 323, 324, 
327, 330, 344, 347, 379, 395, 418, 421, 



442, 447, 577, 609, 611, 612, 620, 631 ; 
liis man, 246. 

Dale's Gift, 228, 229, 421. 

Dale's place of resistance, 210, 467, 619. 

Damarin's (Dameron's ?) Cove, 565. 

Dameron, Captain John, 309, 351, 375. 

Damport, see Davenport. 

Dancing Point, 309. 

Daniel, Christopher, 622. 

Danvers (Davers), *Sir John, 244, 267, 
268, 272, 285, 331-333, 335, 339, 340, 
343, 346, 348, 352, 358, 362-364, 367, 
382, 385, 387, 405, 410, 423, 435, 455, 
481, 496, 527, 528, 557, 594, 597, 609 ; 
Lord, 365. 

Dare, Virginia, 113. 

DarneUy, *Daniel, 333. 

Dartmouth, 105, 178. 

Darwin, Philip, 416. 

Dates, old and new style, xxiii, xxiv. 

Davers, see Danvers. 

Davies (Davis, Davys, etc.), Hem-y, 362; 
Sir Henry, 647 ; *Captain James, 16, 
52, 63, 64, 77, 92, 108, 116, 126, 128, 
149, 150, 152, 158, 209, 228, 230 ; Nevil, 
13, 51; Captain Robert, 16, 51, 92, 
108; Thomas, 314; Thomas, 371. 

Davison, Christopher, 423, 426, 453, 456, 
461, 512, 564, 568,646; Francis, 453; 
Walter, 453 ; WiUiam, 262, 453. 

Davye, Sir Henry, 647. 

Dawkes, Henry, 63 ; Joane, 386. 

Delaue, *Gideon, and his son, 498. 

De la Warr, Lord, see H«nry and Thomas 

• West. 

Delaware Bay, 135 ; River, 380, 430, 454, 
470. 

Delbridge, *John, 347, 349, 388, 390, 402, 
461, 500, 514, 516, 566, 628; Richard, 
433. 

Delft, 542. 

Demeter, Thomas, 416. 

Dennis, John, 445, 454, 581. 

Denton, Thomas, 371. 

Deptford, 297. 

Derby (Eng.), 597. 

Dermer, Thomas, 328, 364, 372, 375, 379, 
380, 418, 448. 

Descaraacu (Indian), 88. 

Deseler, George, 416. 

D'Evereux, *Robert, 2d Earl of Essex, 
85, 125 ; 3d Earl, 542. 

Devils, The Island of, 114, 140, 180, 
200. 

Devonshire, Earl of, 365, 531 ; see Caven- 
dish. 

DeVries. Captain, 376. 

Dichfield or Ditchfield, *Edward, 333, 
526. 

Digby, Sir John, 124, 161, 163, 164, 170, 
177, 180-182, 185-187, 197-199, 234, 
358 

Digge's, *Sir Dudley, 164, 168, 178, 220, 
221, 244, 256, 295, 3.39, 356, 386, 398, 
401, 402, 423, 427, 629. 



662 



INDEX 



Digges, his Hundred, 194. 

Dike, OT Dyke, Mr., 442 ; *John, 526. 

Dilke, Clement, 535, 571, 579, 630; Wil- 
Uam, 629. 

Diseases contracted in London, the 
plague, cholera, etc. ; en route, scurvy, 
bloody flux, pestilence from ships, the 
fevers of the tropics, calenture or yel- 
low fever, etc. ; in Virginia, from the 
Indians, the malaria of summer and 
fall, etc., 106, 137, 143, 188, 381, 501, 
505, etc. ; see Medicine. 

Dixon, Adam, 480, 622. 

Doctors, xxiii, 120, 381, 382, 460, 582 ; 
special order for the preservation of 
health, 361, 366, 377, 380, 381; see 
Medicine. 

Doderidge, *Sir John, 6, 9. 

Dodmister, Thomas, 416. 

Dods, John, 613, 619, 621. 

Dogi (Doeg ?), Indians, 112. 

Domelaw, Richard, 622. 

Dominico, W. I., 22, 23, 149. 

Doncaster, Lord, see James Hay. 

Donne, George, 56; *Dr. John, dean of 
Paul's, 114, 477, 482, 490, 491. 

Donthorne, or Dunthorne, Elizabeth, 613, 
624. 

Dorchester, Viscount, see Dudley Carle- 
ton. 

Dorsett,_*Earl of, 365,382,531, 538, see 
Sackville, Richard. 

Douglas, William, 619. 

Douse, see Dowse. 

Dover (Eng.), 222, 298; Road, 179. 

Dovercourt-cum-Harwich, 273. 

Downes, Mr., 406, 533; Nicholas, 491; 
Richard, 275. 

Downman, John, 613, 614. 

Downs (Eng.), 22, 23, 163, 200, 442. 

Dowse, or Douse, Mr., 561 ; Thomas, 241, 
314, 318, 619. * 

Doxe, 89, 119. 

Drake, *Sir Francis, ix, 1, 6, 65, 88, 164, 
178 ; Mr., 402. 

Drakes, T., 272, 273. 

Draxe, Rev. T., 273. 

Drayton, *Michael, 13, 460. 

Drewry's Island, 29. 

Dublin, Ireland, 629. 

Duels in Virginia, 309, 582. 

Duncombe, *Edward, 215. 

Dunthorne, see Donthorne. 

Dusge-owa, 112. 

" Dust and Ashes," 286, 354, 355, 441. 

Dutch, 33, 48, 65, 241, ^0, 454, 459, 
515 ; ambassadors, 124, 592 ; charter 
(of 1614), 200; East India Company, 
124; gaps, 20S, 210; governor, 193, 
194 ; settlement, 449, 450 ; West India 
Company, 193 (?), 450, 592 ; see Hol- 
land ; Netherlands. 

Dutton, John, 359 ; Richard, 413. 

" Duty Boys," 375, 417, 502, 504. 

Duty Free Term, etc., see Free of duty. 



Each, Captain Samuel, 419, 451, 4^9, 
500-502, 620; Thomas (Samuel ?) 444. 

Eames, Mr. W., 272. 

Earl Marshal, see T. Howard (Arundell). 

Earle, Christopher, 364; Martin, 336; 
*Sir Walter, 364. 

Earley (see Yeardley), *Sir George, 565. 

Eason, Bermudas, 116 ; Edward, 116. 

Eastern shore of Virginia, 176, 288, 313, 
420, 421, 460, 461, 468, 473, 474, 503, 
567, 580, 617, 622, 624, 625 ; Indians, 
465, 492. 

East Greenwich (E.), 7, 402, 405 ; Indies, 
100, 249, 270, 292, 295, 299, 300, 442, 
443, 463, 481, 482 ; India Company, 9, 
10, 24, 43, 44, 48, 200, 220, 282, 242, 
353, 481 ; India free school in Virginia, 
442,*443, 474. 

Ecija, Captain, 87, 88, 110, 111. 

Eclipses, 164. 

Edicts of the governor, 278. 

Edmonds, or Edmunds, Sir Clement, 362 ; 
Master, 353, 376; *Sir Thomas, 181, 
182, 185, 187, 198, 199, 220, 433, 526, 
538, 634. 

Education, see College ; Indians ; Schools ; 
University. 

Edwards, Anthony, 257, 617 ; *Richard, 
526, 590 ; Robert, 527, 537, 590. 

Efforts to colonize, 242. 

Egerton, *Sir Thomas, 6, 165, 187. 

Eld, G., 487. 

Eldred, *John, 10 ; *Walter, 362. 

Eldrington, Nathaniel, 451. 

Elections in the company, annual, 24-3, 
251, 306, 334, 382-384, 422, 476, 587, 
596, 597 ; deferred by order of James 
L, 526, 527, 535, 540. 

Elections in the colony, of the first House 
of Burgesses, 312-315 ; of the second, 
570, 580 ; of the third, being the first 
under the crown, 648 ; Polanders to be 
enfranchised, 344 ; Indians, also, after 
conversion and education, 354, 355 ; see 
Balloting box. 

Elford, Captain Nicholas, 461. 

Elfrith (iElfred, etc.), *Captain Daniel, 
267, 282, 284, 358, 559. 

Elgin, Earl of, see Bruce. 

Elizabeth, Princess, see Elizabeth Stuart. 

Elizabeth, Queen, see Elizabeth Tudor. 

Elizabeth City, 377, 408, 411, 453, 459, 
474, 512, 545, .580, 617, 619-624; be- 
yond Hampton River, 580, 025 ; river, 
313,411. 

Elkington, John, 629. 

Ellis, David, 613. 

Ellison, John, 613. 

Emigrants, 68, 69, 78, 128, 147, 149, 156, 
184. 204, 220, 223, 224, 227-229, 246, 
256, 266, 320, 342, 377-381, 405, 486, 
489, 558, 611, 612, 618, 620, 622, 624, 
625, 627 ; sent by order of James I., 
246, 249, 296, 346, 348, 351, 375; sent 
by the city of London, 273-275, 290, 



INDEX 



663 



334, 346, 348,_ 351-354, 391, 485, 4.SQ ; 
their inspiration the forming of " a 
more free government " in the new 
world, 85, 115, 223, 405, 632, 648-652 ; 
see Government ; Lands ; Law ; Lib- 
erty ; Manufacture ; Medicine ; Politics ; 
Religion ; Virginia. 

Emmanuel I., Charles, 267. 

Emry, Thomas, 54. 

Engineers, 29, 327, 356, 445, 462, 471 ; 
see Surveyors. 

England, 1-20, 43-52, 62-67, 73-85, 
100-107, 120-125, 140-148, 159-170, 
177-188, 196-201, 214-223, 231-237, 
242-252, 262-277, 279-282, 284-286, 
290-;508, 310-317, 324, 325, 333-369, 
382-406, 412, 422-452, 458-460, 462, 
476-498, 517-558, 585-604, 633-652 ; 
Church of, 2, 5, 31, 80, 187, 250, 378, 
408, 457, 458, 558, 566, 630-632 ; con- 
stitution of, 457. 

Englebert, Mr., 386. 

English claim, 178 ; colonies, 152 ; settle- 
ment^ 109-112; soldiers, 204; com- 
plaints, 220; court, 269; flax, 320; 
race and religion, .5, etc. 

Epes, WiUiam, 309, 567, 625, 626. 

Epes' Island, 322. 

Espinosa, Juan de, 88. 

Essex (Eng.), 272, 273, 408, 542. 

Essex, Earl of, see Devereux. 

Essington, *William, 333, 339, 384. 

F.stab]ishing the colony, 253, 262. 

Etherington, Nathaniel, 451. 

Euriug, William, 272. 

Evans. Master, 288 ; Mr., 441 ; Owen, 291; 
see Ewins. 

Evers (Euers ?), Robert, 621. 

Evidences, iv, vi, ix, xiv-xix, xxi-xxiii; 
accounts of Argall's northern voyages, 
213, 214; "Advice on Tobacco," 231 ; 
Anderson, 268 ; Archer's description 
of Virginia, 34-39, and letter, 94 ; 
Baker, 282; Bancroft MSS., 328; 
Baxter's "Gorges," 8; Bennet on To- 
bacco, 398-400; Beverley, 328, 375 j 
bills of adventure, 245, 252 ; Birch's 
" Life of H. P. of W," 124 ; Bradford, 
262, 271, 407; broadsides, 100-104, 
120, 144, 163, 167, 168, 185, 245, 366, 
377-381, 387, 457, 486, etc. ; Brinsley, 
443 ; Burke, xx ; Camden, 282 : CecU 
papers, 3-5, 43-49, 51, etc. ; certificates, 
371, 413 ; Chalmers, 177 ; circular let- 
ters, 80, 147, 214, 222, 248, etc. ; Com- 
mons journals, 122, 215, 400, etc. ; 
declarations (several), 120, 121, 134, 
142, 200, 214, 222. 233, etc. ; " Defense 
of Trade," 220; De la Warr's report, 
159 ; Dexter's list, 272 ; " Discourse of 
the old Virginia Company." 641 ; " Dis- 
covery of the Barmudas," 142 ; docu- 
ments, see infra ; French Mercury, 182 ; 
Force's reprints, 78, 126, 134, 154, 168, 
337, 369; Fuller, 12, 270; Gardiner, 



244 ; Gazette letters, see Chamberlain? 
Carleton, Pory, etc. ; " Genesis of 
United States," for evidences (1606- 
1616), 3, 5, 20, 82, 84, 85, etc. ; " Good 
Newes," 171, 186 ; " Good Speed," 82 ; 
Hagthorpe, 41 ; Hamor, 205, 219 ; Han- 
bury, 265 ; Hazard, 638, 639 ; Hening, 
328, 578, 580 ; Heylin, 250; Hothersall 
and others, 416 ; Howe, 266 ; see In- 
structions ; instruments, 24 ; invoice, 
580; Lederer, 112; Longleat MSS., 
456 ; lord mayor's precept, 214 ; " Lost 
Flocke," 142 ; Maealester College, 492 ; 
" Magazine of American History," 338 ; 
maps, etc., 30, 70, 110, 135, 146, 147, 
594, 595, 640 ; Martin, 492 ; Massachu- 
setts Historical Collections, 327 ; Maury, 
21 ; " Narrative and Critical History," 
252; "New England Register," 296, 
651 ; NeiU, 215, 333, 393, 492, 509, 517, 
571 ; " New Life," 157, 168, 184; New 
York Historical Collections, 328; "Nova 
Britannia," 78, 82, 100, 101, 104, 121 ; 
" Nova Francia," 100 ; orders, etc., 319, 
321, 337, 361, 366, 377-381 ; ordi- 
nance, etc., 426, 427, 455, 456 ; Peck- 
ai-d's " Ferrar," 436, 531, 555, 598, 602- 
604; Percy, 94-96; "Plain Deserip- 
tion," 186; "Planter's Plea," 134; 
Purchas, 184, 187, etc. ; Randolph 
MSS., 316, 561 ; Ratclilfe, 96 ; reports 
of Gates and Dale, 577 ; Rolfe, 226, 
230, 2S6 ; see Sermons ; Shakespeare, 
114-116; Smith's "True Relation," 
59, 62, 63, his Oxford Tract, 59, 60, 
184, 186, 635 ; " New England Trials," 
469, History, see infra ; Spelman, 95 ; 
Stith, XV, 240, 310, 571-573, 575, 608 ; 
"Trade's Increase," 220; Treatise on 
" Indico " and silk manufacture, 465, 
488 ; Virginia Historical Collections,. 
63, 317, 338, 455, o61 ; Virginia land 
patents, 605 ; " Virginia Richly Valued," 
81 ; Virginia laws,162 ; Waterhouse, 
486-488 ; White, 58 ; Wodenoth, 331 ; 
Yate, 374. 

Documents, letters, reports, etc., sent 
to Virginia (probably by every ship, see 
Ships)-, 24, 83, 84, 87,93, 117, 139, 145, 
148, 171, 188, 198, 202, 272, 278, 279, 
285, 305, 362, 372, 409, 410, 413, 414, 
419, 427, 428, 430, 441, 4-53, 4.54, 459, 
460, 470, 471, 486, 499, 501, 520, 521, 
523, 533, 559-561, 609; ditto, sent 
from Virginia (probably by everv ship, 
see Ships), 33, 34, 43, 58, 59, 62, 67, 
68, 73, 74, 94, 98, 99, 105, 106, 109, 
120, 125, 134, 138-140, 144, 149, 151, 
154, 155, 157-161, 171, 180, 189, 190, 
196, 197, 202, 212, 217, 218, 225, 272, 
279, 280, 283, 284, 305, 311, 325, 327, 
339, 342, 355, 3.56, 361-364, 371-374, 
408, 409, 412, 415, 417, 4^8, 462, 464, 
474, 488, 490, 495, 498,502-507,510- 
514, 533-535, 537, 560, 562, 565-570, 



664: 



INDEX 



577, 583, 587, 589, 595, 600, 609, 610, 
642-646; letters /row James I., 248, 
335, 384, 489, 533, 597, 598 ; to James I., 
387, 389, 396, 397 ; letters in re the Pil- 
» griras, 262, etc. ; orders (special) from 
the Privy Council, 520, 521, 526, 532, 
538, 539, 543, 550-552, 555, 556, 572- 
574, 587-589, 609, 63;3 (see Privy Coun- 
cil) ; proclamations, 352, etc. ; petitions 
to James I., xii, 67, 74, 75, 118, 141, 
165 (see Charters, 1609, 1612), 508, 510, 
593, 594, 650 ; to Pariiament, 594, 595 ; 
to Charles I., 642-648; party papers, 
-written in England: I, 517, 519, 523 ; 
II, 517, 518, 520, 523; III, 506, 507, 
518, 523, 560 ; IV, 518-520, 523 ; V, 
518, 519, 523 ; VI, 523 ; VII, 524, 527 ; 
VIII, 524 ; IX, 524 ; X,524, 525, 527 ; 
XI, 524, 525, 527 ; answers, protests, 
etc., 523, 525, 528, 529, 536; ditto, 
written in Virginia : A, 569-571, 573 ; 
B, 569-571, 573 ; C, 572, 574 ; D, 572- 
574; E, 134, 213, 224, 238, 573, 574; 
F, 576-578; G, 578-580; A-G, (1st) 
retained in the colony, 582, 651 ; A-G, 
(2d) sent by Pory, 582-584, 600, 601 ; 
A-G, (3d) sent by Pountis, 579, 582, 

600, 601, 651 ; letters, etc., before the 
General Assembly, 572-575 ; sundry 
documents sent by Pory and Pountis 
(1624), 582-584; Harvey's reports 
(1625), 601, 610-612, 630, 640; reports 
of commissions- in England, and in 
Virginia, 561, 591, 597 ; 582-584, 600, 

601 , 630 ; records of sundry courts in 
England, 274, 275, 283, 351, 437, 603, 
etc.; in Virginia, 240, 375, 418, 421, 
461, 462, etc. ; records of the company 
and colony, originals generally missing, 
iv, vi, ix, XV, xvii, xxi, 141, 147, 160, 
194, 199, 216, 217, 220, 223, 231-234. 
241, 243, 244, 251, 252, 254, 263-266, 269; 
271, 283, 296, 297, 330, 331, 333, 337- 
339, 367, 375, 380, 395, 458, 566, 590, 
603, 604, 634, 638, 640 (see Courts, 
Government, etc.) ; the Privy Council 
concealed (locked up, suppressed, and 
probably destroyed) the records, vi, xv, 
xxi, 147, 337-339, 395, 527, 528, 532, 
541, 585, 587, 588, 603, 604, 632, 634, 
635, 638 ; and then the crown licensed 
the history which we have been taught 
to regard as the standard authority on 
the English colonization of America, 
vi, viii, XV, 632, 635-637 ; Smith's his- 
tory, iii-xxii, 26, 56, 59, 60, 66-71, 93, 
96, 98, 118, 121, 239, 240. 246, 247, 284, 
311, 321, 325, 326, 416, 469, 540, 615, 
635-637 ; Smith's works (Arber's edi- 
tion), 254, 310, 540, 614; see British 
Museum ; I^aw Library of Congress ; 
Lenox Library, and Library of Con- 
g^ss. 

Foreign documents, 147 ; see France ; 
Netherlands; Spain (Ecija, Gondomar, 



Lerma. Molina. Pereda, Philip III., 

Spanish councils, Ulloa, Velasco, 

Ybarra, Zuiliga, F. and P.). 
Ewins, William, 288 (?), 388, 413, 453, 

5.!6, 561, 621. 
Excliange, The, 589. 
Exchequer Chamber, 405, 424. 
Exeter, Earl of, see Thomas Cecil. 

Fairfax, Mr., 281 ; William, 622. 

Faldoe, WilUam H., 128, 136, 137. 

Falling Creek, 465, 466, 617. 

Falles (Captain Newport's), of James 
Kiver, 29, 34, 40, 58, 63, 69, 70, 95, 112, 
136, 150, 151, 154, 156, 164, 322, 462 ; 
of the Potomac, 460. 

Falmouth, 55, 92. 

Farmers, 205, 209, 210, 227-229, 253. 

Faiicett, Edward, 444. 

Fauna, sent to Virginia, 149, 150, 153, 
156, 205, 229. 254, 256, 258, 276, 278, 
279, 284, 312, 323, 346, 353, 376, 378, 
384, 414, 420, 455, 459, 470, 479, 576- 
578, 611, 618, 620, 623-627; of Vir- 
ginia, 35, 36, 54, 155, 174, 205, 206, 
208, 225, 226, 229, 255, 256, 260, 278, 
460, 576, 577. 625. 

Fearne, *Sir John, 201. 

Felgate, Tobias, 371, 388, 413, 452 ; *Wil- 
liam, 452, .536, 560, 629. 

Fells, John, 581, 630. 

Fennor, John, 298. 

Fenton, Rev. Mr., 631. 

Ferrar, *John (deputy, 333-475), 333, 337, 
339, 341, 343, 348, 363, 364, 382, 383, 
386, 397, 398, 410, 420, 427, 428, 432, 
435, 439, 454, 456, 4-57, 460, 477, 481, 
491, 493, 496-498, 501, 512-515, 523, 
526-528, 530, 531, 533, 537, 538, 560, 
564, 587, 602-604 ; Mr., 401, 504, 508, 
512; *Nicholas, Sr., 364; *Nichola3, 
Jr. (deputy, 476-632), 272, 300, 336, 
428, 435, 439, 444, 454, 455, 460, 477, 
491, 496, 499, 517, 523, 526-528, 530- 
532, 534, 535, 537, 538, 5.50, 552, 5.53, 
560, 564-566, 585, 586, 594-597, 599, 
600, 603, 609, 634, 640 ; *WUHam,564, 
619, 646. 

Ferrar's House, 343, 344, 439. 

Ferrar's, or Farrar's, Island, 157, 208, 

^ 313. 

Ferriby, Richard, 413. 

Fields (.see Fells), or Fills, 630. 

Finch, Frances, 413 ; Heneage, 398, 482 ; 
Margaret, 413 ; William, 413. 

First : expedition, 21 ; act on first land- 
ing, 23 ; landing at Jamestown, 26 ; 
church services, 31 ; object, 31 ; docu- 
ments sent from, 33, 43 ; descriptions 
of country and people, 34-39 ; supplies 
to Virginia, 50 ; signer, 52 ; proposed 
Parliament, 56 ; published account, 63 ; 
petitions against a royal form of gov- 
ernment, 67, 74, 75, 1 18, 329 ; explora- 
tion above the falls, 69 ; marriage, 70 ; 



INDEX 



665 



gentlewoman, 70 ; popular charter of 
the company, 74, 75 ; news in Virginia 
of the new charter, 86 ; fleet sent under 
the new charter, 92, 97, 98 ; fort at Old 
Point Comfort, 108 ; fruit of the first 
English Protestant marriage, 113; re- 
public in America, 119 {see 85 et seq. ) ; 
American patriots, 118 ; published 
laws, 126; written laws, 131 ; news of 
the tempest in England, 140 ; Virginia 
courts, 141 ; crop of tobacco, 174, 196 ; 
criticism of the company managers 
through the press, 184 ; fruit of the 
English Church, etc., 203, 247 ; mar- 
riage of an English gentleman to an 
Indian princess, 204 ; named in the 
patent, 225 ; by his wisdom laid a foun- 
dation, 225 ; definite exportation of 
tobacco, 231 ; share of land in Virginia, 
233-235 ; magazine ship, 235, 238 ; 
Brandon, one of the first private plan- 
tations (owned by a planter), patented, 
236 ; private hundred (ov.Tied by ad- 
venturers), 256 ; curing of tobacco on 
lines, 257, 240 ; commissioned secretary 
of state, 2v)5 ; educated Indian, 206 ; 
free election, 314, 315 ; General As- 
sembly and organization of a popular 
form of government, 313-324 ; grants 
of laud by a governor, 323; "West- 
over " located, 324 ; official news in 
Virginia of tlie change in the adminis- 
tration of the company, 328 ; General 
Assembly record, 327, 328, 356 ; ship 
sent under the new administration, 345 ; 
ship sent to Berkeley, 345 ; settlers of 
Berkeley, 371 ; governor of the Sandys- 
Southampton administration, 405 ; debt 
of civil and religious liberty due to 
broad-minded members of the Chui-ch 
of England, 408 ; Plymouth patent, 424 ; 
ship sent under New England charter, 
425 ; legal right to the Pilgrims for 
settlement, 425 ; thanksgiving sermon 
and supper, 429, 430 ; breach of promise 
suit, 564 ; plantation of the Reformed 
religion in America, 595 ; Independent 
church in London, 631 ; martyrs to the 
cause of Christ, xii, 631 ; college for 
the education of the Indians and Eng- 
lish, 632 ; free schools for the educa- 
tion of the natives, 632 ; hospitals and 
chaHtable institutions, 832 ; ship sent 
under Charles I., 644 ; royal secre- 
tary of state, 646 ; election of Bur- 
gresses and General Assembly under 
the crown, 64S ; see Manufacture. 

Fish, 25. 35, 37, 54, 94, 135, 173, 175, 176, 
179, 205, 206, 226, 379, 460, 516, 577, 
618. 620, 623-625. 

Fisheries, northern, 391, 423, 435, 436, 
565. 

Fishing, 138, 139, 175, 225, 229, 282,297, 
310, 328, 384, 385, 485 ; business, 376, 
387-390 ; at Cape Cod, 347, 349, 350, 



360, 365, 385, 387, 388, 403, 425, 435, 
599; clause, 403; company at the 
North, 253, 296, 384, 385; grounds, 
224; monopoly, 388, 437, 490; for 
pearls, 20, 44, etc. ; tackle, 282 ; see 
under Free. 

Fishing voyages, 175, 176, 346, 350, 360, 
365, 403, 428, 430, 435, 436, 444, 471, 
490, 494, 504, 549, 561, 568, 581 ; see 
Ships. 

Fisher, Robert, 613. 

Fitch, m- Fytch, *Matthew, 28, 32, 92, 
97. 

Fitz Jeffreys, Mr., 629. 

Fleet, Captain Henry, 508; Katharine, 
484 ; *Wmiam, 484. 

Flinton, Joan, 613 ; Dr. Pharao, 452, 613, 
622. 

Flood, John, 240, 241, 613. 

Flora of Virginia, and sent to Virginia 
from England, the Bermudas, etc., 35- 
37, 58, 133, 183, 184, 205-208, 225-228, 
230, 233, 255, 260, 276, 320, 409, 461, 
462, 464, 465, 469, 470, 488, 533, 561, 
568, 577; 620 ; see Corn ; Sassafras ; Silk- 
grass ; Tobacco ; Vines, etc. 

Flores, w Flory, Captain, 191, 213, 217. 

Florida, 1, 28, 64, 81, 82, 87, 90, 91, 111, 
144, 1.52, 178, 181, 211. 

Flowerdieu Hundred, 314, 322, 468-470. 

Floyd, Rev. John, 183, 184, 186. 

Flushing, 224, 231, 326, 387, 417, 459, 
568. 

Fluvanna River, 69. 

Fogg, Raphe, 390. 

Food, see Provisions. 

" Forefathers' Day," 407. 

Foreign invasion, 210, 211. 

Forest, Jesse de, 427, 4.50 ; Mrs., 70. 

Fortifications, 276, 327, 356, 461, 471, 576, 
611, 618, 620,623-625,628; bulwark, 
211; "corps du gard," 32, 278, 623; 
earthworks, 276 ; fortif ving the col- 
ony, 226, 386 ; impaling, '210, 225, 226 ; 
land batteries, 210; pallisadoes, 30, 
130, 254, 278, 626 ; platform for ord- 
nance, 211; stockades, 226, etc. Forts, 
30, 308, 420, 620, 623, 625, 626, 640 ; 
Charity, 209; Charles, 134-136, 149, 
150, 1.53, 211; Elizabeth, 209; Henrv, 
1.S4-136, 149, 1.50, 1.53, 211; Hope in 
Faith, 209 ; Mt. Malada, 209 ; Monroe, 
108; Patience, 209; Powhatan, 322; 
on Tyndall's shoals, 451, 501, 502, 511, 
514; at Warraskoyack, 511, 514, 515. 
562, 569 ; see Algernoune Fort ; Arms ; 
Blockhouses ; Dutch gaps ; Jamestown. 

Fortesciie, Sir N., 521 ; Simon, 619. 

Foster, Thomas, 359. 

Fotherby, *Henry, 264, 293, 333, 382, 
638. 

FotheringUl, James, 497. 

Foundation, our national, v, vi, ix, x, xii, 
xiii, xv-xxii, xxiv, 74, 75, 78, 83, 85, 
99, 223, 329-332, 522, 558, 589, 615, 



666 



INDEX 



632, 648-652 ; a mythical, iii, 652 ; see 
Charters ; Government ; Lands ; Laws ; 
Liberty ; Managers ; Keligion ; Virginia 
Company. 

" Four mile tree," 287. 

Fowler, John, 622. 

Fox, Richard, 274. 

Foxton, Elias, 364. 

France, xvui, 147, ISO, 190-192, 197-199, 
214, 217, 220, 416 ; Lilies of, 193. 

Franeke, Arthur and William, 356. 

Franco, Pedro Diaz, 88. 

Freake, Mr., 524 ; *Sir Thomas, 14, 84. 

Free air of America, 56, 67, 332. 

Free, of customs period, 299 ; of duty, 84, 
167, 203, 268, 299; elections, 312, 313, 
315, 366-368, 383, 384, 405, 434, 476- 
478, 616, 643 ; fishing, 349, 388, 403- 
405, 425, 435, 438, 444; laws, 312; 
plantation, 298 ; popular state, 251, 530, 
651 ; posterity, 74 ; speech, 438 ; trade, 
69, 101, 215, 250, 258, 259, 298, 311, 
432, 434; "Freedom's holy light," 
652 ; see Liberty. 

French, 128, 133, 198, 213, 217, 219, 257, 
379, 406, 415, 416, 420, 422, 427-429, 
461, 488, 515, 562.; in Florida, 28, 87, 
90, 109, 181 ; ambassador, 217 ; claims, 
191-193 ; company, 215 ; complaints, 
220; colony, 172, 176, 197, 198, 462; 
prisoners at Jamestown, 191-195, 204 ; 
settlement, 145, 192 ; vignerons, 464, 
465 ; see France. 

Frethorne, Richard, 467, 513. 

Frobisher, Richard, 116. 

Fuller, *Nicholas, 122. 

Furs, 226, 241, 297, 379, 380, 457, 502, 
562, 644. 

Galthropp, Steven, 22. 

Gany, William, 624. 

Garcia, Corporal, 88. 

Garnet, Thomas, 613. 

Garrett, George, 497 ; Samuel, 619 ; Wil- 
liam, 416, 619. 

Gates, Henry, 420 ; Thomas, 621 ; *Sir 
Thomas, 6, 52, 62, 64, 76, 77, 84, 85, 
92, 95, 100, 102, 105, 108, 114, 115, 117, 
118, 126-131, 133, 1.34, 138, 140, 142, 
145, 148, 149, 156-159, 162, 168, 171- 
173, 175, 179, 182, 189, 192, 194, 202, 
203, 207, 210, 212, 214, 225, 229, 242, 
264, 323, 330, 343, 344, 347, 356, 360, 
361, 364, 368, 369, 386, 392, 396, 418, 
446, 447, 489, 577, 579, 631; his 
daughters, 156, 157 ; his wife, 156, 157, 
162. 

" Gebellines," 542. 

Geneva, Genevan principles, 250, 251, 262, 
310, 408, 529. 

Georgia, 112; Indians, 211. 

Ghent, 542. 

Gibbins, Gibbons, James, 498, 538, 561 ; 
John, 498. 

Gibbs, Edmond, 362; John, 314, 413; 



Thomas, Jr., 362 ; *Thomas, Sr., 267, 

347, 362-864, 367, 410, 422, 427, 428, 

454, 460, 481, 526. 
Gifford, IsabeU, 413; Francis, 622; 

Philip, 369. 
Gilbert, *Sir Humphrey, 1, 76 ; *Sir John, 

14, 66, 77 ; *Ralegh, 6, 16, 17. 
Giles, or Gyles, *Sir Edward, 394. 
Girone, Don F. de, 64. 
Glanville, *Mr. [Francis], 404, 436. 
Glass, 502, 562 ; glass-furnace, 427, 430 ; 

glass-house, 132 ; glass-works, 454, 463, 

465, 503, 505, 569 ; see Manufactures. 
Gloucester Point, 58. 
Glover, *Rev. Mr., 631. 
Godby, Thomas, 613, 622. 
Godfry, or Godfree, Richard, 371,414. 
Godson, or Goodson, Robert, 536. 
Godwin, see Goodwin. 
Gofton, Sir Francis, 521, 585, 634. 
Gold, Isaac, 430. 
Gold mines, etc., xviii, 32, 33, 43-47, 57, 

59, 63, 65, 69, 106, 136, 153, 188, 196, 

270, 399, 577 ; belt of Virginia, 69 ; see 

Mines. 
Goldsmith, Samuel, 274. 
Goldstone, see Gulston. 
*Gondomar, Count de, viii, 188, 196-198, 

200, 204, 211, 212, 218, 220, 224, 234, 

236, 237, 243, 269, 270, 276, 300, 361, 

436, 438-440, 531, 597, 599. 
Gonzales, Andres, 88 ; Vineente, 88, 91. 
Gooeh, Dr. Barnaby, 489. 
Goodwin, Francis, 444 ; *Sir Francis, 401. 
Gookin (Goggin, Cockin, Cockayne, etc.), 

Daniel, 455, 458, 459, 463, 471, 624, 

629. 
Gore, John, 274, 351; *Robert, 333; 

*William, 274, 351. 
Gorges, *Sir Ferdinando, 3, 6, 8-10, 13, 

15, 16, 43, 48, 51, .52, 292, 309, 349, 
360-363, 380, 388-390, 403-405, 424, 
425, 435, 436, 438, 444, 449, 450, 489, 
490 ; Captain Robert, 566. 

Gosnold, *Anthony, Sr., 70 ; Anthony, Jr., 
429; *Captain Bartholomew, 12,22,30, 
33, 41, 55, 118, 135 ; Robert, 429. 

Gouge, *Rev. William, 202, 212. 

Gourgaing (Gooking ?), Edward, 314. 

Government of the colony under the 
crown (1607-1609), designed by James 
I., monarchical, v, vi-ix, xii, xiii, x>, 
9-119 {see, also, 127, 187, 236, 3t9, 332, 
405, 557, 558, 637, 639) ; the petitioi 
from Virginia against this government 
was the germ of popular rights in 
America, xii, 67, 74, 75, etc. ; '" Sove- 
raigne rule in Virginia," 95, 96, 616 ; 
transfer period (1609-1610), 97-117. 
Presidents of the Kinj^-'s Council in 
Virginia: E.-M. Wingfield, 21-42; J. 
Ratcliffe, 53-61 ; J. Smith, 68-71, 86, 
93-96 ; during the transfer period, G. 
Percy, 97-99, 108-117. 

Government of the colony under the 



INDEX 



667 



. company, v, vi, xii, xix, xx; -while 
planting the colony (1010-1615), the 
form was advisedly a strong- one, 117, 
127-230. Governors in Virginia duiing 
this period: T. Gates, 117-119, 126- 
128, 156-158, 171-176, 189-195, 202, 
203; T. West (De la Warr), 128-138; 
G. Percy, 138, 139, 149 ; T. Dale, 149- 
156, 203-213, 224-230. The object had 
been to plant a more free government 
in the new world than then obtained at 
home (85), and while establishing the 
colony (1615-1618) the managers were 
designing such a form, 223, 230-289 ; 
sec 241-243, 249-251, 266, etc.; also, 
115, 117, 127, 557. The governors in 
Virginia during this period were : G. 
Yeardley, 230, 238-241; S. ArgaU, 
253-261, 277-287 ; N. PoweU, 287-289. 
Establishing the new form of govern- 
ment (1618-1622) in Virginia, 266, 281, 
290-466. Owing to the massacre and 
to the fact that James I. and others in 
England were protesting against the 
popular government being established 
in America, from April, 1622, to Febru- 
ary, 1625, was a period of interruption 
in Virginia, 466-614. Governors in Vir- 
ginia during these periods : G. Yeard- 
ley, 308-332, 370-381, 407-421; F. 
Wyatt, 453-475, 499-516, 559-584, 605- 

614. James I. had determined (in Feb- 
ruary, 1622) to resume the government 
of Virginia, and was arranging a pre- 
text for doing so, viii, 186, 439, 448, 
475, 479, 510, 521, 531, 5-32, 534, 540- 
542, 547-549, 551, 555, .556, 561, 571- 
584; see Commissions in England and 
in Virginia to justify the king in re- 
suming the government. 

Government of the colony resumed by 
the crown, vii, viii, 603, 605, 611, 614, 

615, 637, 639, 641, 642, 644, 650. 
James I., designing a permanent royal 
government for Virginia, with aid of 
former royal commissioners for Ire- 
land, 539, 541, 543-553, 555, 572-581, 
593, 614, 633-635, 638-640, 649. The 
transfer period was February, 1625- 
February, 1627, and owing to the death 
of James I., the actual transfer fortu- 
nately took place under Charles I., 
614-632, 639-648. Governors in Vir- 
ginia, duruig this period : F. Wyatt, 
614-632, 63(:l-645, 647; G. Yeardley, 
645-648 ; F. West, 648 ; and so far as 
they could they held the government 
of the colony " to the right ends de- 
clared," 85, 99, 223, 237, 441, 648, 649, 
651. 

Government of the colony and company, 
historic questions relative to " the alter- 
ation thereof into so popular a course," 
v-xx, 71, 73-85, 98, 99, 115, 186, 237, 
439, 519, 521, 529, 530, 540-542, 647, 



548, 550, 5.54-558, 589, 598, 599, 614, 
615, 632, 635, 639, 647-652. 
Government, the company's form of, some 
references thereto from the different 
points of view of the patriot and court 
parties : v-ix, xv-xxii, 85, 223, 237, 309, 
310, 313, 318, 329, 330, 332, 384, 385, 
387, 405, 408, 437, 439, 448, 475, 478, 
519, 529, 530, 539, 542, 557, 558, 588, 
589, 599, 615, 616, 633-635, 637, 639, 

642, 648-650. Outline : two supreme 
councils, 293, 309 ; I. Council of State, 
293, 309, 310, 315, 323, 324, 382, 410, 
417, 422, 423, 426, 427, 455, 456, 463, 
464, 467, 474, 521, 563-.565, 567, 572, 
609, 610, 616, 649 ; II. General Assem- 
bly, 56, 70, 166, 293, 309, 312-324, 361, 
364, 365, 375, 377, 385, 419, 427, 453, 
455, 4.56, 458, 462, .569-.581, 614, 616, 

643, 646-650 ; House of Burgesses, xii, 

263, 309, 312-315, 570-581, 614, 616, 
647-651 ; " assembled together " (con- 
ventions ?), 642. 647, 648 ; constitution, 
etc., 384-386, 410, 426, 427, 455, 456, 
624, 629 ; temporary government of 
private plantations, 3.54, 371, 372, 407; 
fees, wages, etc., 376, 411, etc. See 
Charters ; Corporations; Courts; Crown ; 
Elections ; Emigrants ; Evidence ; Foun- 
dation ; Free ; Geneva ; Instructions ; In- 
dependence ; Lands ; Laws ; Liberty ; 
Magna Charta ; Managers ; Pensions ; 
Politics; Popular; Virginia. 

Grandison, Viscount, see Oliver St. John. 
Grave, or Graves, George, 613 ; *Thomas, 

314, 318, 613, 629. 
Gravesend, 55, 247, 249, 253. 
Gray, *John, 383 ; *Robert, 82. 
Gray's Inn, 453. 
Great Bay, 460 ; Weyonoke, 619 ; Wya- 

nokes, 516 ; Yarmouth, 222. 
Great Charter, see Magna Charta. 
Green, *Mr. [Lawrence], 386. 
Greenland, 198, 199. 
Greenleafe, Robert, 613. 
Greenway, Richard, 369. 
Greenwich (East), 7, 402, 405. 
Gregory XIIL, Pope, 110. 
Grenville (Green-ville, etc.), *Bernard, 14; 

Frances, 413 ; *Sir Richard, 1. 
Gresham College, 198. 
GrevUle, *Foulke, Lord Brooke, 14, 263, 

264, 445, 480, 526, 538, 593. 
Griffin, J., 617. 

Grimes, or Grymes, George, 619. 

Grimsditch, Thomas, 359. 

Grindon, Edward, 239, 580, 608, 613, 621. 

Grocers' company, 124, 168, 213. 

Grubb, John, 622. 

Guadeloupe, 22, 415. 

" Guamuyhurta," 109. 

Guandape, 89. 

" Guano," 111 ; " Guatan," 110 ; " Guelfs," 

542. 
Guercheville, *Madame, 178, 191, 219. 



668 



INDEX 



Guiana, 3, 48, 121. 

Guinea, 289, 292. 

Gulf Stream, 21, 24, 87, 92, 111, 154, 

261. 
Gulston, *Dr. Theodore, 246, 339, 342, 

350, 382, 426, 454, 460. 
Gundrie, or Gunnery, John, 613, 624. 
Gunpowder Plot, 5, 180. 
Guy, Captain, 459 ; Mr., 404. 
Gyver, Kobert, 419. 

Haberly, James, 629. 

Hackett, Edmond, 364, 536, 560, 590. 

Hague, The, 145, 234, 247, 294, 356, 427, 
489. 

Hailstorm of 1618 in Virginia, 278. 

Haiward or Hay ward, Hugh, 613. 

Hakewell, *William, 398. 

Hakluyt, Edmond, 423; *Kev. Richard, 
1, 6, 73, 81, 82, 243, 423. 

Hail, George, 413 ; John, 613 ; Robert, 
433. 

Halliday, WiUiam, 273, 351. 

Halsey, or Haiilsey, John, 251, 369. 

Hamersley, *Hugh, 366, 476, 526. 

Hamilton, Marquis of, 439, 482, 526, 531, 
538, 553. 

Hamond, Susan, 362. 

Hamor, *Ralph, Sr., 445; *Ralph, Jr., 
132, 157, 191, 203, 205-211, 213, 219, 
225, 226, 228, 243-245, 247, 253, 256, 
310, 402, 445, 456, 463, 464, 472, 474, 
475, 490, 564, 571, 579, 608, 610, 613, 
614, 616, 621, 622, 629, 639, 646; 
Thomas, 245. 

Hampton, Walter, 371. 

Hampton, Court, 48, 50, 434 ; river, 135, 
309, 323, 580, 623. 

Handford, or Hansford, *Sir Humphrey, 
334, 339, 382, 476, 497. ^ 

Haiiham, *Thomas, 6, 9, 15. 

Harber, Edward, 350. 

Harding, Christopher, 619. 

Harecutious (?), Mr., 346, 

Hariot, *Thomas, 73. 

Harley, *Captain Edward, 16, 148 ; Sir 

. Robert, 497, 599 ; see Hawley. 

Harper, *Mr. [John], 369. 

Harris, John, 564, 619 ; Thomas, 365 ; 
571. 579, 613. 

Harrison, *Edward, 390; Ensign, 310; 
*George, 464, 471, 503, 504, 581. 582, 
620 ; *John, 444, 503, 581, 582, 600. 

Harrison's Landing, 371. 

Hart, *Sir Eustace, 267 ; John, 406, 536, 
549, 561, 563. 

Harvests, 327, 472, 474, 566, 568, 578. 

Harvey, Captain, afterwards Sir John, 
56, 390, 421, 5.56, 571-576, 580, 583, 
608, 610-612, 614, 621,629,639,640, 
645, 646, 650 ; Sir Sebastian, 296. 

Harwell, Sir Edmond, 444 ; Francis, 444, 
629, 630. 

Harwich, 273, 597. 

Harwood, or Horwood, *Sir Edward, 



295, 301, 340, 344, 523 ; Thomas, 382, 
410, 455, 462, 474. 

Hassard, John, 122. 

Hastings, *Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, 
382. 

Hatton, John, 613. 

Havana, 145, 152, 163, 182, 412. 

Hawes (Himes, etc.), Nicholas, 15, 190. 

Hawkins, *Sir John, 1, 178 ; *Sir Rich- 
ard, 14, 239. 

Hawley, Edward, 460 ; see Harley. 

Hay, *James, Lord Doncaster, etc., 295, 
367, 393, 397, 434, 531, 538. 

Hayes, *Captain Edward and Thomas, 
3-5. 

Hayman, Sir Peter, 436. 

Hazell, Captain, 44. 

Hazenell, Captain Robert, 480. 

Heale, *Sir Warwick, 292, 436. 

Heath, *Sir Robert, 347, 354, 363,385, 
401, 547, 592, 599, 628, 634. 

Helicott, Thomas, 257. 

Henrico, Henerico, Henricus, etc., 150, 
151, 154-157, 171, 175, 194, 208, 209, 
228, 238, 240, 254, 308, 313, 314, 319, 
322, 336, 377, 411, 467, 470, 500, 545, 
546, 579, 617, 618 ; Island, 375, 482. 

Hemy, Prince of Wales, see Henry 
Stuart. 

*Henry IV., the Great, of France, 192, 
198. 

Henry V. of England, 14. 

Henry, Patrick, 650, 651. 

*' Herauldes, the college of," 84. 

Herbert, *Edward (attorney) 351, 362, 
365, 367, 383, 385, 397, 528 ; *Philip, 
Earl of Montgomery, 115, 247, 444, 
609 ; *William, Earl of Pembroke, 104, 
115, 244, 405, 439, 444, 445, 463, 526, 
531, 538, 553, 609, 629. 

"Hercules," 221. 

Hertford, Earl of, see Edward Seymour. 

Heskins, or Haskins, Alice, 413. 

Hext, Sir Edward, 292. 

Hickford, Henry, 369. 

Hide, or Hyde, *Sir Lawrence, 367, 494, 
594. 

High Wycombe, 222. v 

Hill, Edward, 467, 474, 512, 624 ; John, 
512. 

Hillary, Christopher, 629. 

Hills, D., 351. 

Hillsboro' (N. C), 211. 

Hilton, Anthony and Elizabeth, 559. 

Himes (Hawes, etc.), Nicholas, 15, 190. 

Hitch, John, 484. 

Hitchman. William, 116. 

Hobart, *Sir Henry, 165 ; William, 513. 

Hobson, Edward, 617 ; John, 619 ; *Capt. 
Nicholas, 148 ; Thomas, 240, 241, 619. 

Hodges, *John, 274 ; *Thoma8, 362. 

Hodgson, John, 336. 

Hog Island, 70, 127, 287, 374, 580, 617, 
618, 621, 622. 

Holborn (Eng.), 527. 



INDEX 



669 



Hole, *Wmiam, 146, 346. 

Holecroft. *Captam Thomas, 100, 131, 

136 ; *Sir Thomas, 14, 122. 
HoUand, Gabriel, 413, 571, 579, 613; 

Mary, 621 ; Rebecca, 613 ; Kiehard, 

413." 
HoUand, 64, 124, 156, 200, 208, 218, 226, 

235, 327, 362, 387, 417, 449, 450, 459, 

495, 593 ; see States General. 
Hollanders, 295, 380, 415, 449, 559, 593. 
HoUock, Jarre tt, 241. 
Holloway, John, 356. 
Holmden, John, 413. 
Holy City, 108. 
Hope, John, 353. 
Hopkins, EUezer, 224; Rev. Mr., 482, 

631 ; Stephen, 116, 408. 
Home, 380, 459. 
Horsey, Sir J., 401. 
Horton, Mistress, 116. 
Horwood. or Harwood, Sir Edward, 295, 

301 ; .iee Harwood. 
Hoskins, Bartholomew, 408, 624. 
Hothersall, Thomas, 416, 622. 
Houghton, Lord. *John Holies, 382, 477. 
House of Austria, 592 ; of Burgesses, see 

Government ; of Commons, viii, xviii, 

14, 16, 17, 122, 215, 216, 398, 400. 

422-424, 434-441, 493, 556, 595-600, 

m& ; of Lords, 17, 215, 216, 599 ; see 

Parliament ; Politics, 
toward, *Charles (Lord Admiral), 2, 263, 

267, 277 ; *Henry (Northampton), 17, 

180; Hugh, 613; *Theophilus, 115; 

*Thomas (Arnndell), 293, 360-362, 

365, 389, 425, 538, 555 ; *Thomas (Suf- 
folk), 50, 263. 
Howe, Mr., 416. 

Howlett, John, 413 ; WUliam, 413. 
Huatt, Nathaniel, 622. 
Hudleston, Huddleston, Hurlestone, 

Hurdston, etc., Capt. John, 409, 469, 

471, 472, 621, 622. 
Hudson, Henry, 59, 64, 65, 92, 105, 124, 

132, 164, 193, 255; Leonard, 474; 

Robert, 271. 
Hudson Bay, 165, 198, 487; river, 105, 

193, 380, 430, 448, 450, 454, 470, 514, 

559. 
Huguenots, 1, 28, 87, 90, 109, 408 ; see 

French ; Walloons. 
Humble. *Peter, 527. 
Hun (?), Edmund, 491. 
Hundreds, 250, 256, 257, 291, 309, 314, 

327, 377, 4:33, 627, 628. 
Hungary, 65. 

Hungerford, *Sir Edward, 14. 
Hungers, or Hungars, Creek, 421, 625. 
Himt, *Rev. Robert, 12, 30, 31, 57, 70, 

631 ; Thomas, 200. 
HimtingdOn, Earl of, see Henry Hastings. 
Hurd, Edward, 482, 630 ; John, 371. 
Hurt, Nathaniel, 622. 
Hutchins, Robert, 622. 
Hutchinson, Henry, 445 ; Robert, 622. 



Ibbison, or Ibotson, Percival, 622. 

Iceland, 21. 

Incorporations, see Corporations. 

Independence, our, xxi, 75, 166, 448. 

Indians, vii, 24, 27-32, 40, 42, 53-57, 59, 
60, 69, 110, 137, 144, etc. ; attack by, 
30, 45; beUef of, 293, 294; bowmen, 
204 ; break the peace, 281 ; description 
of, 37-39 ; families, 454 ; guides, 205 ; 
hostages, ITS; kings, 46U, 462, 508; 
massacre, 466-475 ; missions. 111, 112 ; 
peace with, 173, 175, 192, 204, 205, 
212, 213, 226, 2.38, 243, 417, 465, 471 ; 
plot the massacre, 465 ; poisoned, 568, 
569 ; princess saves a captive, 57, 82 ; 
trade with, 297, 320, 372, 567 ; " trained 
to shoot in guns," 239, 278 ; wars with, 
30, 45, 94, 95, 97, 105, 109, 112, 113, 
131, 133, 136, 239, 464-469, 471-475, 
484, 499, 510-516, 565-570, 576, 577, 
583, 589 ; to be brought into subjection, 
492, 493 ; to be exterminated, 500- 
503, 507, 508, 562, 606-608, 611; 
wheat, see Corn. 

Indians, conversion of, 4, 6, 175, 203, 212, 
248, 272, 275, 286, 320, 322, 335, 354- 
356, 364, 374, 417, 418, 441, 442, 4.54, 
462, 466, 632 ; churches for, 248, 275, 
286 ; converts, Chanco, Pocahontas, 
203, 468, 469, and two not named in 
1625, 624 ; education of, 230, 233, 234, 
246, 248, 297, 320, 322, 335, 441, 442, 
491, 500, 570, 596, 632 ; after conver- 
sion and education to be enfranchised, 
354, 355 ; see College and Schools ; Re- 
ligion. 

Industries inaugurated, see Manufac- 
tures. 

Ingram, *Sir Arthur, 483. 

Inner Temple, 451. 

Instructions, 251, 266, 293, 317, 318, 320, 
455, 457, 459, 647. 

Ipswich (Eng.), 146. 

Irby, *Anthony, 367. 

Ireland, 3, 66, 162, 184, 236, 348, 420, 
443, 451, 459, 463, 547, 590, 610, 629. 

Irish, 125, 459, 461 ; pirates, 105 ; planta- 
tion, 459. 

Iron, 36, 37, 106, 123, 133, 379, 423, 4-57, 
478, 479, 562; bloomery, 562; mills, 
479; works, 361, 379, 423, 441, 442, 
454, 463, 465, 467, 500, 503, 569. 

Isle of Wight county, 313 ; plantation, 
419, 468. 

Istan, the great king, 514. 

Italians, 455, 463, 505. 

Italy, 181, 416. 

Itopatin (see Istan), 280. 

Iverson, Percival, 622. 

Jacatra, 299. 

Jackson, John, 314, 318, 621. 

Jacob, Abraham, 483, 496 ; Rev. Henry, 

631 ; John, 483, 496 ; Mr., 343, 348, 

350, 426, 432. 



670 



INDEX 



Jacobopolis, 48 ; see Jamestown. 

Jacobson, James and Philip, 452. 

Jamaica, 164. 

James, *Thoma3, 10. 

James I., see James Stuart. 

James City, 254, 286, 308, 313, 314, 321, 
322, 370, 371, 374, 377, 408, 411, 414, 
462, 463, 468, 470, 503, 516, 545, 579, 
582, 620-623, 647. 

James Fort, 32, 48. 

James, or Jamestown Island, 470, 579, 
621. 

James Port, 39, 

James River, 25, 29, 30, 33, 34, 44, 69, 70, 
77, 92, 112, 151, 194, 195, 203, 209, 210, 
226, 236, 256, 267, 313, 314, 371, 372, 
408, 418, 451, 473, 492, 501, 619, 623. 

Jamestown, xiii, xx, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 
40, 45, 47, 54-61, 68, 69, 71, 89, 90, 95, 
97, 105, 108-113, 116, 117, 127-139, 
142, 150-158, 175, 191, 192, 203, 207- 
211, 224r-229, 238, 254-257, 278-287, 
308-315, 323, 373, 375, 408, 418, 420, 
458, 463-465, 468, 471-475, 500, 579, 
582, 008, 619-626, 648. 

Janson, WiUiam, 498. 

Japazus, 372. 

Jarratt, Samuel and William, 619. 

Jefferson, Captain, 571 ; John, 314, 318, 
571, 621. 

Jefferyes, or Jeffrys, George, 122 ; Ro- 
bert, 445. 

Jelfe, James, 413. 

Jenkins, Oliver, 613. 

Jeplison, Sir J., 402. 

Jerland, Dr. James, 416. 

Jermyne, Mr., 477 ; Philip, 369, 385 ; *Sir 
Thomas, 402. 

Jerusalem, 108. 

Jesuits, 111, 145, 176, 178, 183, 191-193, 
195, 197, 198, 204, 214, 217, 219. 

Johnson, or Jonson, *Ben, 247 ; Cornelius, 
459; *Edwar(i, 624; John, 335, 370; 
613, 621 ; *Robert, 78, 124, 168, 169, 
243, 259, 267, 272, 274, 280, 293, 299, 
301, 305, 306, 342, 343, 366, 384, 427, 
438, 444, 446, 447, 479, 489, 517, 518, 
522, 523, 528, 533, 569-572, 634; 
*Thomas, 274 ; Tobias, 629. 

Joint, or Common, Stock, 79, 103, 104, 
231-2.33, 237, 238, 240, 243, 244, 268, 
278, 291, 296, 297, 324. 

JoUes, John, 482. 

Jones, Elizabeth, 613; Giles, 622; Sir 
Henry, 350 ; John, 371 ; Capt. Thomas. 
353, 363, 407, 424, 469. 470, 484, 645 ; 
William, 421 ; Sir WiUiam, 259, 448, 
521, .542, 552. 

Jones' Neck, 313. 

Jopassus, or Japazus, 137, 372. 

Jordan, or Jourdan, Cicely, 563, 564, 594, 
613 ; *Samuel, 314, 318, 470, 481, 563, 
564, 619 ; S. (?), 186. 

"Jordan's Journey," 470, 563, 579, 619, 
624, 627 ; river, 88-90, 110, 112. 



Joyce, William, 416. 

Juan, Father Francis (from the monastery 

of Guadalupe in Spain), 111. 
Julian, William, 132, 613, 624, 
" Jupiter," 221. 

Kainta, 134. 

Keane, Richard, 460. 

Keeoughtan, 25, 29, 53, 60, 133, 135, 153, 

211, 309, 323, 470, 473, 475, 516; 

" Keeketan," 370 ; Kequoughtau, 228, 

229 ; see Kiceowtan. 
Keene, George, 413. 
Keightley, *Thomas, 333, 339, 351, 352, 

362, 367, 382, 554, 589, 590. 
Keith, Rev. George, 624, 631. 
Keith's Creek, 468. 

Kemish, or Kemys, Arthur, 413 ; Mr., 

470 ; Thomas, 413. 
Kempe, WiUiam, 480. 
Kemps, an Indian, 137. 
KendaU, *Captain George, 24, 30, 41, 53, 

.55, 118; MUes, 359,391. 
Kent, Humphrey, 619. 
.Kent (Eng.), 334, 4:36, 590, 597. 
Kenwan Marsh, 322. 
Ken'idge, Thomas, 481. 
Kescl'iaeks (Cheskackes, etc.), 225 ; Kis- 

Kiceowtan, 254, 258, 314, 319, 377; Ki- 
coiighton, 308; Kiquotan, 411; see 
Keeoughtan. 

KiUigrew, *Sir Robert, 14, 496, 527, 51 
.>S1, 538, 609, 634, 643. 

KiUingbeek, Mr., 281. 

King, Captain, 92 ; *Rev. John, 185, 246. 

363, 306, 477 ; Mr., 364. 
King and Queen of France, 220. 

King George County, 174; James his 

river, 20; Patowomeck, 174; Pow- 

atah 29. 
" King'-rood " (Eng.), 370. 
King's Bed-chamber, 478, 636 ; Bench, 

291, 292, 586-589, 601-603, 634, 635. 
KingsmiU, Richard, 132, 571, 580, 613, 

621. 
Kirby, Captain, 359, 370 ; Edward, 386 ; 

John, 430. 
Kirkham, R., 366. 
" Kitchin's plot," 211. 

Lafuente, Fr. Diego de, 276, 358. 

Lake, John, 624 ; *Sir Thomas, 187, 299. 

Lakes, the great, 60 ; " some Lacke," 54. 

Lamb, John and Richard, 369. 

Lambert, Mr., 257, 260. 

Lampkin, John, 283. 

Lands, dividing the, 233, 235, 243, 246, 
254 ; grants, patents, etc., 249, 2.50, 280, 
289, 297, 305, 318-320, 324, 354, 356, 
365, 379, 390, 391, 408, 418, 419, 421, 
430, 443, 444, 535, 605, 606, 608, 611, 
615, 617-625, 627-630, 647 (Ulegal (?) 
grants, 280, 319, 323) ; shares, etc., on 
biUs of adventure, on adventure of the 



INDEX 



671 



nd upon merit, 244, 245, 252, 

.J, 295, 296, 299, 300, 307, 318, 

.i34, 336, 339, 342, 344-346, 348, 

J, 351, 353, 355, 356, 360-366, 368, 

369, 374, 375, 382, 388, 386, 390, 393, 
406, 411, 422-430, 434, 441, 444, 445, 
451, 452, 464, 477, 480-484. 487, 491, 
497, 498, 523, 524, 527, 533,' 587, 591, 
594, 615 ; hundreds were owned by the 
adventurers, plantations by the plant- 
ers, 433 ; towns, 308, 314 ; see Hun- 
dreds, Plantations, etc. 

Lands, public, 225, 253, 318, 319, 378, 
411,454,492, 500, 562, 611, 617, 618, 

620, 623, 624, 627, 635, 636; com- 
pany's, 319, 321-323, 346,370, 378, 379, 
411, 419, 420, 454, 563, 617, 618, 620, 
623, 624, 627, 649; common, 319, 321- 
324, 336, 345, 454, 617, 618, 620, 623, 
627 ; glebe, 209, 319, 321-323, 356, 378, 

621, 623, 627. Attached to : governor's 
office, 319, 321-323, 346, 463, 562, 600, 
620, 627; secretary's, 365, 411, 420, 
461,463, 624; treasurer's, 319, 422, 
463, 562, 600, 618; marshal's, 422; 
physician-general's place, 391, 416, 463 ; 
vice-admiral's place, 430. 

Lands for the encouragement of educa- 
tion : college, 319, 322, 336, 345, 347, 

370, 376, 378, 505, 617, 627 ; schools, 
429, 442, 443, 627 ; university, 322, 617, 
627 ; see Managers. 

Lands for the encouragement of manufac- 
tures : glass-furnace, 430 ; shipbuilding 
plant, 474 ; see Iron ; Manufactures. 

Landsdell, William, 624. 

Land's End, 145, 149. 

Lane, *Captain Ralph, 1 ; Thomas, 613. 

Lang, Rev. Mr., 367. 

Langle, John, 416. 

Languedoc, 406, 422. 

Lapworth, Michael, 453, 456, 467. 

Latham, Thomas, 497. 

Latitude, observations of, 29. 

" Laughing King," 421, 460, 468. 

Launee, Rev. Mr., 481. 

La Warr, Lord, see Henry and Thomas 
West. 

L iw and Laws, relative to, xxiil, 126, 
130, 131, 154, 155, 162, 251, 257, 283, 
310, 317-321, 385, 386, 457, 458, 564 ; 
565, 578, 579 ; of goverimaent and 
magistracy, 327, 363, 364, 385, 410 ; 
of private plantations, 354 ; extracted 
from those of England, 385, from the 
company charters, etc., 385, from cor- 
porations, etc., 385 ; martial laws, 154 ; 
see Government ; Managers. 

Law Library of Congress, 16, 316. 

Lawly, Sir Edward, 364. 

Lawne, Christopher, 288, 314, 318, 419 ; 
Rev. Mr., 481. 

Lawue's Creek, 288 ; Hundred, 291 ; 
plantation, 314. 

Lawrence, John, 369. 



Lawson, *Captain Thomas, 131, 150,629. 

Laydon, Alice, 158 ; Anne, 613 ; John, 
70, 113, 114, 158, 374, 613, 617 ; Vir- 
ginia, 113. 

Leake, or Leate, John, 629 ; *Nicholas, 
274, 476, 477, 526 ; Simon, 629 ; Rev. 
Wm., 474, 631. 

Lector, Robert, 416. 

Lee, Leigh, or Ley, *Hugh, 148, 161 ; 
Sir James, 122, 602, 603; Lawrence, 
514, 629 ; Mr., 71 ; William, 63. 

Leech, Sir Edward, 259, 448 ; Mr., 426, 
454, 456, 463, 477. 

Leicester, Earl of, see Robert Sidney. 

Leice.ster (Eng.), 269. 

Leigh, see Lee. 

Leister, or Lister, Edward, 409, 468. 

Leman, Sir John, 273, 351. 

Leminge (?), Joseph, 629. 

Lemos, *Count, 52. 

Lenox, Duke of, see Ludovic Stuart. 

Lenox Library (N. Y.), 100, 272. 

Lerma, *Duke of, 144, 161, 269. 

Letters of Marque, 14. 

Letters, see Evidences. 

Levellis, Arthur, 629. 

Leveson, Thomas, 629. 

Levet, Christopher, 566, 629. 

Lewis, Richard, 116. 

Ley, see Lee. 

Leyden, 252, 262, 266, 271, 272, 300, 341, 
354. 

Liberties of Parliament, 436, 438, 439. 

Liberty, 75, 166, 237, 251, 650 ; civil and 
religious, xv. xvii, xix, xx, 251, 262, .387, 
408, 458, 558, 589, 615, 637, 651 ; of 
free election, 476-478 ; of General As- 
sembly, 573, 643, 648, to govern their 
own affairs, 530, 589, 643 (consented to 
in part, 648, 650) ; principles of, 438 ; 
of religion, 265, 630; of the subject, 
437, 438, 650; land of, 652; see Gov- 
ernment of the Company. 

Libraries, of Congress, 338, 532, 604 ; of 
Mr. Hunt, 57 ; "of so many that have 
died," 460 ; see Books. 

Lightfoot, John, 613, 621. 

Lince, Robert, 613. 

Lincoln. Earl of, see Henry and Theophi- 
lus Clinton. 

Lincoln's Inn, 346, 452, 629. 

Linsell, Augustine, 365. 

Linzey, or Lindesey, John, Roger, 613. 

Lisbon. 148, 152, 182. 

Lisle, Viscount, see Robert Sidney. 

Lister, see Leister. 

Litton, or Lytton, *WiUiam, 390. 

Little Gidding, 499. 

Lizard, The (Eng.), 253. 

Lloyd, David, 390. 

Locke, Thomas, 485. 

Lodge, Joice, 423. 

Lombard Street, 512. 

London, 2, 3, 9-13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 26, 43, 
55, 62-64, 73, 80, 83, 100, 127, etc. ; 



672 



INDEX 



city companies, SO, 103, 144, 213, 423 ; 
merchants, 201, 221, 222. 

Long, Robert, 413. 

Longman, Peter, 621. 

Lord Admiral (Charles Howard), 263, 267, 
277. 

Lord Bishop of London, 185, 246, 300, 
350, 356, 363, 366, 386, 477 ; see Revs. 
John King and George Mountaine. 

Lords commissioners for the affairs of 
Virginia, 640, 644. 

Lords : High Chencellors or Keepers, see 
T. Egerton (1606-1617); F, Bacon 
(1617-1621) ; J. Waiiams (1621-1624). 
High treasurers, see T. Sackville 
(1606-1608); R. Cecil (1608-1612); 
James I. (1612-1614) ; T. Howard (Suf- 
folk) (1614^1620) ; H. Montague (1620- 
1621) ; L. Cranfield (1621-1624). Pre- 
sident of the Privy Council, see H. 
Montague (1621-1624). Privy Seal, see 
R. Cecil (1606-1608); H. Howard 
(1608-1614) ; R. Carr (1614-1616) ; E. 
Somerset (1616-1624). Steward, see 
L. Stuart (1615-1624). Chamberlain, 
see T. Howard (Suffolk) (1606-1614) ; 
R. Carr (1614, 1615); W. Herbert 
(Pembroke) (1615-1624). Chief Jus- 
tices of the Court of King's Bench, see 
J. Popham (1606, 1607) ; T. Fleming 
(1607-1613) ; E. Coke (1618-1616) ; H. 
Montague (1616-1621) ; J. Ley (1621- 
1024). Chief Justices of the Court of 
Common Pleas, see E. Anderson (1606, 
1607) ; E. Coke (1607-1613) ; H. Hobart 
(1613-1624). 

Lotteries, 163, 165, 167, 168, 179, 182, 
185, 187, 200, 201, 214, 218, 222, 232, 
244, 245, 248, 269, 296, 334, 342, 350, 
384, 394, 395, 423. 

Lottery books, 214, 223. 

Louis Xin., of France, 178. 

Love, Captain Thomas, 3, 8, 489. 

Lovelace, *Sir William , 245. 

Low Countries, 6, 20, 52, 125, 163, 295, 
325, 514 ; see Holland ; Netherlands. 

Lowe, Sir Thomas, 14, 273, 351. 

Lower, Sir Nicholas and *his brothers, 
480. 

Lucas, William, 416. 

Lukin, *Edward, 295, 296. 

Lupo, Albiano, or Aliano, 362, 613 ; Lieu- 
tenant, 623 ; Elizabeth, 623. 

Luther, reformer, 439. 

Lymbrye, Francis, 148, 152, 204, 212,230. 

L^me (Eng.), 113, 124. 

Lymington (Eng.), 597. 

Lynch, Robert, 613. 

Lynn (Eng.), 581. 

Lynnhaven Bay, 25. 

Machumps, or Matehumps, 70. 

Maeock, see Mavcock. 

Maddoeks, Thomas, 390. 

Madison, *Captain Isaac, 55, 146, 258, 373, 



419, 426, 473, 474, 516, 56. 
579, 580, 614, 619, 639; Mai^ 

Madrid, 148, 160, 161, 163, 164, x 
180, 186, 197, 216, 217. 

Magazine, the (company's store), i.- 
235, 239, 272, 278, 279, 290, 291, 320, 
342, 343, 346, 351, 379, 430, 462, 502, 
538 561 

Magna Charta, 266, 293, 308, 317-321, 
324, 329, 411, 605,614, 65L 

Magnel, Francis, 125. 

Magnor, or Maggner, Charles, 619; Mr., 
284. 

Maids for wives, 291, 292, 346, 376, 430, 
454, 450, 461, 462, 502, 562. 

Maine (New England), 191. 

Maine, the (land near Jamestown), 308, 
619, 622. 

Mainwaring (Mannering, etc.),*Sir Henry, 
361, 367, 451 ; Henry, 365 ; Philip, 293 ; 
Thomas, 451. 

Maize, Virginia wheat, 299 ; see Corn. 

Mallet, *Sir John, 14. 

Mallory, Sir James, 436. 

Man, Joseph, 299. 

" Managers of the business," v-viii, x, xii, 
xiu, xvi-xxii, 41, 71, 73-79, 85, 98, 
105-107, 115, 120, 121, 141-143, 168, 
169, 173, 182, 184, 190, 200, 201, 210, 
219, 221, 222, 225, 233, 2.36, 237, 241- 
244, 249-252, 259, 263, 265, 279, 280, 
284, 307, 329-332, 381, 556-558, 614, 
615, 632, 647-652 ; see Commissions in 
Virginia for dividing lands, and for 
establishing a popular form of govern- 
ment ; Courts of the Colony and Com- 
pany of Virginia ; Government of the 
colony and company under the popular 
charters, the Governors and their coun- 
cil, the Council of State, General 
Assembly, House of Burgesses, and 
other officials of the colony in Virginia, 
and the Treasurers, Deputies, commit- 
tees, and other officials of the company 
in England. 

" The real ways by which they man- 
aged to carry the movement to final 
success : " By diplomacy, by appealing 
to Parliament, by arousing the English 
race and religion in opposition to " the 
ambitious growing " of Spain, by indu- 
cing James I. to grai.t them new char- 
ters which enabled them to alter the 
king's form of government and to offer 
a more free government, lands, liberty, 
etc., in the New World and by devoting 
their time, money, and lives to the suc- 
cess of their enterprise, xix-xxi, 13, 
17-20, 41, 71, 73, 76, 79, 85, 106, 107, 
115, 120, 121, 141-143, 165-170, 173, 
185, 189, 200, etc. 

" The real motive which inspired 
them," briefly stated, was the desire to 
benefit their country by spreading the 
commonwealth and commerce of Eng- 



INDEX 



673 



land, and their posterity by establish- 
ing " a more free government " for the 
new nation which they were planting 
in the New World, xxi, 13, 49, 74, 75, 
78, 80, 85, 121, 223, 237, 242, 249, 441, 
632, 648, etc. 

"The real difficulties which they 
had to overcome : " Dangers of the 
passage by sea, see under Ships; un- 
wholesomeness of the climate, see under 
Medicine ; the opposition of the In- 
dians, see under Indians ; of Spain who 
claimed the country, see Philip III-, 
Spain, Spanish; of the Church of 
Rome which upheld the BuUs of the 
Pope that granted the country to 
Spain, see under Rome; of France on 
account of the removal of the Jesuits 
from New England, see France, French, 
Jesuits ; the great disappointment aris- 
ing after the hopes of finding mines, 
the South Sea, and other "present 
profit" had vanished which fostered 
the fault-finding of planters under the 
crown who had abandoned Virginia, 
and furnished a pretext to adventurers 
for refusing to pay their dues ; etc., 
xvii-xxi, 41, lOG, 121, 142, 143, 1G9, 
177, 180, 182, 184-187, 189, 200, 202, 
etc. 

The real cause of the contemporary 
" defailement " was the growing oppo- 
sition of the Court Party to their pop- 
ular plans, which caused the crown to 
deprive them of the reward for their 
labor and of the honors due them for 
having planted the first republic in 
America; but under Divine Provi- 
dence their posterity is now enjoying 
the fruits of their labor, and we will 
render them the honors due ; see under 
Politics. See also, Charters ; Evi- 
dences ; Government ; Lands ; Law ; 
Liberty ; Manufacture ; Religion ; 
Trade ; Virginia Company, etc. 
Manahata River, 449. 
Manedo, 9. 
Manhatas Isle, 193. 
Manners, Sir George, 402. 
Mansfeld, Count, 489. 
Mansfield, *Sir Robert, 14, 158, 160, 172, 

292, 440, 444, 489, 509, 593. 
Manufactures, pertaining to our first, 68, 
228 ; blacksmiths, 342 ; brickraakers, 
342, 463, 500 ; making brick, 157, 466, 
546 ; making indigo, 465 ; making ship 
stores, 68, :i28 ; mechanics, 320 ; saw- 
mills. 454; silk-houses, 623; silk- 
worm houses, 626 ; smiths, 342 ; water- 
mills, 463 ; wind-mills, 463, 620 ; see 
Building ; Commodities ; Glass-mak- 
ing ; Iron- making ; Land grants for the 
encouragement of manufactures ; Salt- 
making ; Shipbuilding; Silk-making; 
Wine-making. See also, " Cavyare ; " 



Oils ; Potashes ; Soap-ashes ; Tobacco ; 
Wainscot ; Wood ashes ; etc. 
Mapscock (Maycock ?) Creek, 322. 
" Maracabo," 399. 
Markham, Richard, 445 ; Robert, 28 ; 

Valentine, 333. 
Mark Lane, 275. 

Marlier, Nyccolas de la (after naturaliza- 
tion, Niccolas Marlier), 571, 580, 651. 
Marloe, or Morlett, Thomas, 571, 579. 
Marshall, Mr., 513. 
Martha's or Martin's Vineyard, 33. 
Martian, see Marlier. 
Martin, the Armenian, 5.54. 
Martin, *Christopher, 245, 365, 408 ; Dor- 
cas, 2.50 ; *Captain John, x, 24, 30, 32, 
33, 45, 46, 53, 54, 59, 62, 67, 73, 74, ^2, 
94^97 107, 118, 127, 131,208,230,235, 
236, 240, 241, 243, 244, 250, 253, 256, 
258, 259, 261, 288, 308-310, 313, 316, 
369, 372, 414, 420, 444, 446, 480, 491, 
492, 497, 498, 554, 591, 609, 610, 613, 
614, 620, 629, 639, 650 ; *Sir Richard, 
32, 46; *Richard, Esq., 142, 216, 276. 
Martin's Brandon, patent for, etc., 236, 
256, 258, 288, 308, 309, 314, 316, 317, 
372 414 491, 492, 496-498, 582, 620. 
Martin's Hundred, 276, 285, 286, 291, 314, 
344, 355, 382, 410, 443, 455, 459, 462, 
467, 468, 474, 485, 497, 500, 502, 511, 
515^ 538, 562, 576, 594, 622, 627, 629. 
Martin's patent for free trade, 267, 320, 

444. 
Martin's or Martha's Vineyard, 33. 
Maryland, 609 ; patent, 603. 
" Masks," 185. 
Mason, Francis, 613, 619. 
Massachusetts, 513; Historical Society, 

327. 
Massacres by Indians, 240, 466-475, 481, 
484-488, 493, 499, 506, 508, 513, 517, 
541, 565, 576, 608, 609, 617-624, 630, 
632. _ ^ 

Masters : Of the Horse, see E. Somerset 
(1606-1616) ; G. Villiers (1616-1624). 
Of the Jewels, see H. Carey (1606- 
161S) ; A. MUdmay (1618-1620) ; H. 
MUdmay (1620-1624). Of the Ord- 
nance, see George Lord Carew (1608- 
1624). Of the Rolls, see E. Lord 
Bruce (1606-1610) ; E. Philips (1610- 
1614) ; J. Csesar (1614-1624). Of the 
Wards, see R. Cecil (1606-1612) ; Sir 
G. Carew (1612) ; W. Cope (1612- 
1614); W. Knollys (1614-1619); L. 
Cranfield (1619-1621). 
Masterson, Captain Edward, 386 ; Captain 

Lawrence, 360 ; Thomas, 365. 
Masulipatam, 442. 
Matchumps, 69. 
Matepony River, 607. 
Mathew, *Tobias, archbishop of York, 

100, 248, 350 ; Walter, 8. 
Matoaka, 203, 246, 248 ; see Pocahontas. 
Matthews, or Mathews, Captain Samuel, 



674 



INDEX 



509, 516, 556, 571, 573-575, 580, 614, 
622, 626, 629, 639, 646 ;" his divident," 
621. 

Maury's Charts, 21. 

May, Cornells Jaeobsen, 375, 514 ; Corne- 
Uus, 622; *Sir Humphrey, 527, 531, 
533, 609, 634, 643. 

Maycock, Macock, or Maieoek, Samuel, 
260, 310, 317, 412, 456, 467, 468, 619 ; 
his dividend, 619. 

Mayflower compact, 407, 468 ; emigrants, 
263, 424, 468, 609 ; see under Ships. 

Maynard, *Lord William, 494. 

McGuire, Francis, 58, 59. 

Mead, Rev. Joseph, 485, 488, 495. 

Mease, *Kev. Wm., 132, 229, 554, 590, 
631. 

Medicine, pertaining to medical treat- 
ment, etc., 381 ; apothecaries, 327 ; 
bloody flux, 282 ; " chirg-ions," 582 ; 
chirurgeous, 454 ; death-rate, 40, 41 ; 
drinks, 29, 45, 395, 409, 501, 511, 578 ; 
drugs and simples, 577 ; guest-houses, 
377, 378, 454 ; hospitals, 157, 377, 378 ; 
inn at Jamestown, 458, 463, 465 ; Lem- 
nian earth, 137, 461 ; pestilence, 113, 
513 ; plague, or cholera, 13, 83, 92, 97, 
98, 105, 131 ; physicians, 327, 391 ; qui- 
nine, XX, 143 ; remedies, 137 ; scurvy, 
137 ; " seasoning," 256, 464 ; surgeon 
of the treasurer, 212 ; yellow fever, or 
calenture, xx, 92, 97, 105, 134 ; see 
Census ; Diseases ; Doctors ; Mortality ; 
Lands for the physician - general's 
places ; Sickly Season ; Sickness. Phy- 
sician - generals in Virginia, see Drs. 
Bohun and Potts ; medical advisers in 
England, see Drs. Anthony Gulstone, 
Winston, and Woodall. 

Mediterranean Sea, 21. 

Meeting-places of the courts of the Vir- 
ginia Company ; see Cecil, T. (Exeter 
House) ; Southampton House ; Rich, R. 
( " My Lord of Warwick's " ) ; and the 
houses of the Ferrars, Sir Edwin 
Sandvs, and Sir Thomas Smythe. 

Mailing, Thomas, 351, 305, 445, 451, 480, 
490, 497, 498, 501. 

Menefie, George, 582, 608, 621. 

Merchant tailors, 213 ; Hall, 491, 

Merchants, 201, 221, 222. 

Merrick, *Sir John, 526. 

Merry, or Merrie, *Sir Thomas, 600, 
601. 

Meverell, Francis, 271. 

Mevis (West Indies), 22, 138, 261, 415. 

Mexico, 412 ; Gulf of, 21. 

Michelbome, *Sir Edward, 14. 

Middelburg, 326, 327, 387, 301,417, 431, 
600. 

Middle Temple, 482, 523, 524, 629. 

Middleton, David, 382, 410; Mr., 498; 
*Sir Thomas, 214. 

Midhurst (Eng.), 391. 

Mildmay, *Sir Henry, 482, 494, 522. 



Milford Haven, 193. 

Military discipline, 386 ; see Arms, etc. ; 

Fortifications, etc. 
MUlan, Sergeant, 88. 
Milton, Richard, 413. 
Milward, Henry, 619. 
Mines, John, 416. 
Mines and minerals, 35-37, 59-61, 65, 70, 

103, 123, 128, 136, 137, 151, 153, 173, 

196, 417, 461, 462, 577, 578; copper, 

30, 106, 463, .577; "fool's gold," 32; 

mines of Spain in America, 592; see 

Gold ; Iron ; Silver. 
Miranda, Maria de, 88, 89, 110. 
Mitchell, *Sir Bartholomew, 14. 
Mockett, *Rev. Dr. Richard, 189, 202, 

212. 
Mohominge, 40. 
Molasco. Albertus, 590; the Polander, 

554, 585. 
Mole. George, 445. 
Molina, *Diego de, 152, 174, 189, 190, 

196, 197, 202, 204, 211, 212, 218, 224, 

230, 233, 234, 269. 
Molines, Joseph, Priscilla, William, 408. 
MoU, Estinien, 420. 
Molton, Thomas, 371. 
Mona Island, 22, 23 ; passage, 23. 
Monaeans, Monecans, etc., 112, 492. 
Money scarce, 398. 

Monopolies, 383-388, 398, 402, 403, 434. 
Monson, *Sir Thomas, 232; *Sir Wil- 

Uam, 146, 232, 629. 
Montague, *Sir Henry, 9, 433, 451, 509, 

526, 536, 538, 539, 542, 543, 547, 549, 

550, 553-555, 633, 634. 
Montmorencie, *Henry de, 198. 
Monts, Sieur de, 193. 
Moone, Captain, 92. 
Moone, or Moore, Churchill, 430. 
Mooney, James, 112. 
Moore, or More, *Sir George, 9, 122, 401, 

436 ; *John, 161 ; 423 ; *Richard, 168 ; 

Thomas, 630 ; Sir Thomas, iii. 
Moorish thieves, 219. 
Mordon, or Morton, Oliver, 444. 
Morer, *Richard, 333. 
Moreton, or Morton, Matthew, 24 ; Rich- 
ard, 390 ; *Rev. Dr. Thomas, 80. 
Morgan, Edward, 368; Thomas, 617; 

William, 613, 624. 
Morlett, Thomas, 571, 579. 
Morrell, Rev. William, 566. 
Morrison, *Sir Richard, 105. 
Morse, Thomas. 497. 
Mortality, 256,' 260, 372, 377, 380, 381, 

419, 562 ; see Sickness. 
Morton, see Moreton. 
Moston, Robert, 629, 
Motte, Sieur de la, 191, 202, 214. 
Moulson, Thomas, 351, 
Moulston, Robert, 629, 
Mounson, see Monson. 
Mountaine, *Rev. Dr. George, 477. 
Mount Desert, 191, 192, 509 ; Joy, 108 ; 



INDEX 



675 



Malady, w Mv Lady, 209, 375, 482 ; 

Manseil, 490, 509. 
Mountney, Alexander, 613, 624. 
Moy-umpes, King of, 255. 
Mulberry Island, 127, 128, 468, 622; 

trees, 320, 374, 410, 423, 458, 488, 577. 
Muneke, *Levinus, 14, 48. 
Munster, 547. 

Muscovy or Russia Company, 198, 199. 
Mutiny at sea, 22, 24. 
Mylbourne, Robert, 487, 488. 

Namontack, 58, 69. 

Nanamack, 134. 

Nansemond, 94, 97, 151, 173, 473. 

Nansemonds, 475, 516. 

Natives, 279 ; see Indians. 

Naunton, Sir Robert, 264, 265, 353, 492. 

Navigation to be set up in Virginia, 362, 
373, 379 ; vide Argall's services in 
1612-1614. 

Neale, Mx., 404, 4-36. 

" Near Mulberry Island," 622. 

"Neck of Land" in Charles City, 194, 
313, 579, 617-619, 621 ; in James City, 
580, 621. 

Necochincos, 472. 

Negroes, 219, 249, 288, 289, 292, 325- 
327, 359, 360, 368, 391, 434. 

Nelme, Christopher, 371. 

Nelson, *Francis, 28, 50, 55, 59, 62, 63, 
73, 92, 95, 165 ; Port Nelson, 198. 

Nenemachanew, 466. 

Nether Hundred, 194, 209. 

Netherlands, x\dii, xix, 62, 82, 100, 124, 
144, 147, 198, 202, 262, 326, 356, 360, 
418, 427, 431, 445, 592; see HoUand; 
States General. 

Nethersole. Sir Francis, 598. 

Neumart, Peter, 617. 

NeviUe, *Sir Henry, 14. 

New Amsterdam, 450. 

Newberie, Edward, 416. 

New Castle (Eng.), 249. 

Newee, or Newse, Thomas, .382, 410-412, 
414, 454, 455, 459, 463, 563; Mrs. 
Thomas, 563 ; *Sir William, 422, 453, 
455, 459, 504, 511, 629; Newce's 
Town or Port, 459 ; see New Port 
Newce. 

New England (Nova Albion, " Canada," 
North Virginia, etc.), ix, xi, xxi, 135, 
172, 194, 219, 224, 253, 257, 282, 287, 
290, 296, 309, 310, 313, 360, 361, 368, 
388-390, 396, 403, 404, 407-409, 424, 
425, 435-438, 441, 448, 449, 470-472, 
474, 482, 483, 490, 503, 509, 516, 565, 
566, 581, 583, 609, 616; charter or 
patent of 1620, 360, 361, 380, 387-390, 
403, 404, 425, 436-4^18, 441, 455, 489 ; 
to be renewed, 390, 438 ; preparing a 
new charter, 489 ; see Cape Cod ; Fish- 
ing ; North Virginia. 

Newfoundland. 53, 124, 261, 311, 313, 
347, 376, 404, 407, 409, 516. 



New France (Nova Francia), 82, 100, 
145, 192, 450 ; Granada, 409. 

Newland, Nowland, or Noland, Robert, 
406,419,490. 

New Market, 293, 294, 296. 

New nation, 107, 115, etc. 

New Netherland, 450. 

New Plymouth, 565, 566. 

Newport, *Captain Christopher, 12, 13, 
22-26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 39, 40, 43-48, 50, 
53-59, 61-63, 68-70, 73-77, 84, 86, 92, 
101, 102, 114, 116, 118, 131, 133, 134, 
140, 142, 143, 149, 150, 157, 162, 173, 
178, .331, 348, 376, 426, 464, 630, 650; 
Mrs. Christopher, 376, 426, 464 ; John, 
348, 630; Thomas (see Savage), 421; 
Newport's Point, 58 ; Newport (Elng.), 
145, 148, 178, 597. 

New Port Newce <yr Newse, 459, 470, 508, 
512, 624. 

New Scotland (Nova Scotia), 435 ; Spain, 
412. 

Newton, *Thomas, 293, 441, 638. 

New Towne in James City, 608. 

New World, 2, 5, 107, 112, etc. 

New York, 273, 450 ; Historical Society, 
328. 

Nicholas, Edward and John, 593. 

Nicholls, Mr., 561 ; Thomas, 513. 

Norfolk (Virginia), 412. 

Norineott, *Thomas, 271. 

North, Sir Charles, 629. 

Northampton County, 421. 

Northampton, Earl of, see Henry How- 
ard. 

North Cape, 461. 

North Carolina, 90, 114, 211, 463. 

Northern Neck of Virginia, 443. 

Northmen, 21. 

North Virginia, see Virginia, North. 

Northwest Passage, 124, 164, 165, 177, 
178, 198, 487. 

Norton, Nathaniel, 617 ; Captain William, 
427, 430, 454, 455, 463, 505. 

Norwich (Eng.), 269. 

Norwood, *Richard, 147, 422, 445, 497, 
512, 513, 630. 

Nottingham, Earl of, see Charles Howard. 

Nova Albion (New England), 164. 

Nova Britannia (New Britain), 78, 82, 
100, 101, 104, 121. 

Nova Francia (New France), 100. 

Nova Scotia (New Scotland), 435. 

Nymegen, 489. 

Oaths, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 340, 342, 847. 

Oatland (Eng.), 429. 

Objects, 13, 49, 78, 80, 121, 242, 441, 

632. 
Ocanahoen, Occaneechi, 211. 
Occoquan, 88, 90. 
Officers in Virginia, 227-229, 323, 324, 

426, 453, 454. 
Office of the Rolls, 603. 
Offley, or Oftly, *Robert, 476. 



676 



INDEX 



Ogle, *Sir John, 494, 496, 497, 519, 522, 

533, 593. 
Old Plantation Creek, 625, 
Old Port Comfort, see Point Comfort. 
Oldsworth, Arnold, 413 ; Mr., 422, 426 ; 

Robert, 345. 
Olevan, Anthony, 419. 
Olivarez, 501. 
Opechancanough, Opochancano, etc., 

XTii, 2.55, 260, 279-281, 312, 417, 462, 

465, 466, 472, 473, 475, 492, 495, 500, 

502, 503, 514, 515, 566 ; " Opoeohontas," 

488 ; " Apaehisco " (?), 204. 
Orange, Philip, 413. 
'"Oranoque," 399. 
Orders, 319, 321, 337, 361, 366. 
Ordinance and Constitution, 426, 427, 

455, 456. 
Ortiz, John, 81, 82. 

Osborne, Humphrey, 371 ; Thomas, 618. 
Otiotan (Istan ?), 607. 
"Over the river from Jamestown," 468, 

580, 617, 619, 621, 622. 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, 464. 
Owen, or Owens, Thomas, 629. 
Owley, John, 619. 
Oxford (Eng.), 383, 422, 482. 
Oyster Banks, 71, 616. 

Pace, Richard, 408, 468, 621. 

" Pace's Paines," 408, 469, 621. 

Pacific Ocean, 106 ; see South Sea. 

" Padre Maestro," 276, 300. 

Page, Frances and John, 413. 

Paget, *William, Lord, 244. 294, 348, 445, 
477, 531, 533, 594, 609, 634, 643. 

Paine, Henry, ll6. 

Painter, or Paynter, Rowland, 371. 

Palatinate, 412. 

Palatyue, Frederic, Prince, 185, 186, 388. 

Palavicine, Edward, 361, 554, 590 ; To- 
bias, 383. 

Palmer, *Sir Anthony, 14 ; Edward, 482, 
497, 629; 497; John, 629; Mr., 400; 
*William, 333. 

Palmes, *Sir Guy, 401. 

Pamont, King of, 44. "*- 

Pamunkey River, 113, 469, 472, 473, 475, 
511, 515, 576, 624. 

Pamunkevs, Pamaunkes, etc., 58, 70, 203, 
567, 607, 608. 

Paquachowng, 29. 

Paramour, Robert, 613. 

Paris (France), 181, 185, 187, 198, 199, 
220. 

Parker, *WilHam, 3, 6; William, 371. 

Parkhuist, John, 452. 

Parkinson, see Perkinson. 

Parliament, 291, 317, 330, 375; (1604- 
1611) 4-6, 11, 12, 14-17, 20, 75, 122, 
123; (1614) 200, 215, 216; (1621- 
1622) 388, 391, 394, 396-405, 422-425, 
4.34-441, 446, 447, 489, 493; (1624- 
1625) 587, 590-596, 599 ; (1625) 642 ; 
(1640) 603. 



Parliament suggested in Virginia, xii, 55, 

.56, 67. 
PameU, Griffen, 416. 
Particular Plantationai, 377-379, 422,454, 

459. 
Parties, see Polities. 
Partin, Robert, 613, 619. 
Partridge, Thomas, 409. 
Pasbahaghs, Pasbeheys, Paspahayes, Pas. 

piha, etc., 26, 28, 138, 308, 323, 470, 

620, 622, 625. 
Pascoticons, 567. 

Pasmore, or Passmore, Thomas, 283, 621. 

Pasptanzie, or Pastancy, 137, l73, 174. 

Past Politics, see Politics. 

Patche, Thomas and William, 371. 

Patents, see under Lands. 

Pathering, David, 416. 

Patowomeck, 174, 255 ; see Potomac. 

Patterson, J., 617. 

Paulet, or Pawlett, John, 491 ; Rev. Ro- 
bert, 413, 414, 426, 455, 463, 474, 631 ; 
*Thomas, 314, 318. 

Paul's, see St. Paul's. 

Paulson, *Riehard, 271, 386. 

Paulsteed, Mr., 445. 

Pauw, Burgomaster, 449. 

Pavington, Sir Francis, 369. 

Pawatah, the great, 29, 37. 

Pawatah's Tower, 29. 

Payne, John, 350 ; see Paine. 

Paynter, Edward, 371 ; see Painter. 

Pearee, see Pierce. 

Pecke, Francis, 629. 

Pedee River, 112. 

Peere, Lott, 200, 244, 406. 

Peirce, see Pierce. 

Peirsey, *Abraham, 239, 279, 311, 325, 
342, 346, 556, 571. 573-575, 614, 619- 

621, 626, 639, 640 ; see Percy. 
Pelham, Henry, 629. 

Pell, Sir Anthony and Lady, 445. 

Pemberton, John, 629 ; Rev. Mr., 481, 
331. 

Pemble, Thomas, 444. 

Pembroke, Earl of, see WHliam Herbert. 

Pembroke River, 173, 174. 

Peniston, Anthony, 331. 

Pensions for the injured in the wars, 607. 

Peppett, Gilbert, 308, 622. 

Percy, *Captain George, x, xvii, 27-29, 
33, 48, 58, 69, 94-96, 98, 99, 108, 116- 
118, 126, 131, 136-139. 149, 150, 155, 
158, 179, 190, 211, 330, 365, 408, 622 ; 
*Henry, Earl of Northumberland, 155 ; 
WUliam de, 108. 

Percy's or Persey's Himdred, 619. 

Pereda, Don Gaspar de, 145, 152. 

Perez, M. Antonio, 152, 158. 

Periods : crucial, 106 ; of non-responsi- 
bility, 117 ; " the darkest hour," 173, 
180. 

Perkins, Francis, 58 ; Rev. William, 370. 

Perkinson, Marmaduke, 460, 461. 

Perrot, *Sir James, 401. 



INDEX 



677 



Perrv, George, 622 ; Henry, 491 ; Mr., 
491; Richard, 629; Captain Williara, 
468, 570, 580, 593, 596, 613, 617 ; his 
Indian boy, 570. 

Persons, Elizabeth, 115. 

Peterson, J. , 617. 

Pett, Master, 92. 

Peyes, Gabriel, 416. 

Peyton, Sir Edward, 402. 

Phetiplace, William, 4S4. 

*Philip m. of Spain, 2, 3, 15, 15-20, 45, 
48, 50, 52, 62-65, 79-81, 83, 87, 91, 105, 
111, 120, 121, 123-125, 141-146, 148, 
152, 160-163, 167, 170, 177-181, 185- 
189, 196-200, 218, 220, 234, 236, 243, 
269, 276, 311, 341,357; urged to re- 
move the English from his possessions 
in America, 48, 50-52, 64, 80, 81, 124, 
142, 146, 170, 177-184, 187, 197, 218, 
269, 270 ; see Spain. 

Philip IV. of Spain, 501. 

Philips, Ralph, 416. 

Philpot Lane, 248, 306, 343. 

Pierce (Pearse, Peirse, etc.), Henry, 371 ; 
Jane, 132 ; Joan, 613 ; John, 354, 355, 
368, 424 ; Mr., 561 ; Thomas, 316, 371, 
468 ; Captain WiUiam, 132, 516, 571, 
579, 587. 613, 621, 622, 626. 

Pierce's Patent, 424, 425, 436, 609, 628. 

Piercy (Percy or Perry ?), Henry, 491. 

Piersy, Piercy, etc., see Peirsey. 

Pilgrim Fathers, xx, 252, 262-266, 271- 
273, 283, 300, 335, 341, 342, 354, 355, 
368, 387, 407, 408, 424, 425, 430. 

Pilgrims of the Cross, 108. 

Pirkett, Miles, 460, 463, 613, 624; see 
Priekett. 

Piscataqua. 566. 

Pitt, Sir William, 521, 585. 

Plant, Humphrey, 371. 

Plantation, of John Ferrar, 341, 

Plantation, to make good the, 266, 281 ; 
see under Government (the company's). 

Plantations, 308, 377-379 ; see Particular 
Plantations ; Private Plantations ; Hun- 
di'eds ; Lands. 

Planters, xix, 79, 229, 235, 243, 249, 250, 
2.54, 5()3, 579, 614, 615, 650. 

Plymouth (Eng.), 3, 8, 9, 10, 17, 43, 51, 
52, 84, 247, 287, 361, 444. 

Phmouth Patent, 424, 425, 436, 609; 
Plantation, 262, 471, 472, 565, 566; 
Rock, 407. 

*Pocahontas (Pokahuntis, etc.), jdi, xvi, 
56, 57, 174, 175, 190, 191, 196,203, 204, 
208, 212, 234, 246, 247, 260, 469 ; see 
Matoaka ; John RoKe ; Rebecca Rolf e ; 
Powhatan. 

Pocliins, 133. 

Poetan Bay, 57, 58. 

Pohatan, 44, 246, 247; Pohetan, 234; 
see Powhatan. 

Point Comfort, 57, 108, 116, 132-135, 149- 
152, 154, 155, 160, 172-175, 189, 190, 
206, 211, 253, 276; see Cape Comfort. 



Point of Shoals, 501, 515. 

Polander, Molasco the, 554, 585. 

Politics, Politicians, etc., pertaining to, 
xviii, 1, 3, 85, 223, 288, -301, 331, 332, 
398, 439, 458, 598. 

Parties, 272, 280, 288, 289, 384, 398, 
528, 590: — 

National, 307, 441. I. The Commons, 
country, or Patriot Party, 85, 107, 125, 
223, 237, 289, 307, 332, 361, 369, 398, 
403, 405, 406, 425, 434, 436,439, 440,458. 
IL The Court, Crown, Royal, or " Span- 
ish " Party, the growing opposition of, 
to the popular plans of the Patriot 
Party, viii, 74, 107, 121, 169, 184, 186, 
187, 198, 202, 223, 237, 249, 284, 289, 
306, 307, 332, 361, 398, 403, 406, 425, 
434, 435, 438-441, 458, 478, 480, 540, 
556-558, 602, 635. 

Company and colony parties, xix, 244, 
268, 280, 289, 301, 305, 307, 313, 315, 
329, 3.30, 398, 440, 557, 580, 586, 596. 
(a) The Lords, 280, 289, .305, 312, 315, 
321, 326; (b) The Merchants, 280, 289, 
305, 315, 336, 384 ; (c) The Auditors, 
289, 306. (A) The Smythe Party, 398, 
403, 478, 480, 493, 522, 528, 529, 541, 
542, 557, 590, 591, 602, 641. (B) The 
Sandys Party, 297, 315, 398, 403, 431, 
441,478,480, 493, 522, 528, 529, 541, 
542, 556-558, 560, 589-591, 599, 602, 
641, 643. RepubUcans, 330; Demo- 
crats, 330 ; Monopolists, 280, 298 ; Free- 
traders, 298. 

Party controversies, 517-560, 597; 
evidences, 288, 528, 529, 590; see 
Crown ; Government ; House of Com- 
mons ; Laws ; Managers ; Monopolies ; 
Parliament. 

Pollard, William, 369. 

Pollington (Polentine, etc.), John, 314, 
561, 571, 580, 622. 

Poole (Powell ?), *Sir Henry, 401 ; *Jonas, 
28 ; Rev. Mr., 149, 150, 631 ; Robert, 
240, 812, 321, 511, 514, 608, 613. 

Pooley, Rev. GreviUe, 563, 564, 570, 594, 
631. 

Pope, The, 12, 18, 110, 183. 

Popham, *Sir Francis, 9 ; *Captain 
George, 6, 16, 17, 64, 66 ; *Sir John, 5, 
6, 8-iO, 13, 17, 20, 29, 65, 66, 77, 170. 

Popular Charters (1609 and 1612), v, vi, 
viii-x, xii, xviii, xx, 74, 85, 118, 121, 
223, 263, 289, 408, 424, 458, 572, 599, 
602, 632-6,34, 650, 651 ; government, 
74, 75, etc. ; ideas, xvi, xvii, 58, 408 ; 
policy, 263 ; rights, ix, 7, 85, 99, 223, 
439, .5.57, 615 ; see Free ; Government ; 
Liberty, etc. 

Port, or Poore, Cottage, 28. 

Port Nelson, 198. 

Port Royal, 145, 193. 

Porter, Mr., 369. 

Porto Rico, 149. 

Portsmouth (Eng.), 83, 159, 196, 224, 231. 



678 



INDEX 



Portugal, 17, 163, 181, 292. 

Pory, *John, 33, 48, 282, 290, 294, 295, 
310, 313, 316, 317, 320, 327, 356, 365, 
371, 411-414, 420, 423, 460, 461, 463, 
472, 481, 556, 571-575, 582-584, 600, 
601. 

Potaxone, King of, 608. 

Potomac Indians, 137, 372, 472, 474, 492, 
567 ; river, 59, 60, 137, 173-175, 255, 
460, 472, 492, 667. 

Potter, Henry, 257. 

Potts, or Pott, Dr. John, 426, 454, 456, 
509, 568, 570, 571, 579, 610, 616, 621, 
639, 646. 

Pountis, (n- Poyntz, John, 253, 295, 296, 
312, 365, 382, 384, 410, 426, 430, 454, 
456, 460, 564, 571, 579, 582-584, 600, 
601, 616, 628, 642. 

Powell (Powle, Poole, etc.), Captain, 354, 
414 ; Ensign, 137, 138 ; Captain John, 
256, 277, 326, 368, 370, 600, 645 ; John, 
613, 623 ; Rev. Mr., 631 ; Captain *Na- 
thaniel, 61, 146, 257, 277, 287-289, 310, 

317, 412, 414, 456, 467, 619 ; Thomas, 
115 ; 622 ; Captain *Williara, 257, 814, 

318, 472, 473, 500, 504, 505,^621. 
Powhatan (Pohetan, Poetan, etc.) Indians, 

40,44,203,261. 

Powhatans, the king of the, sdi, xvii, 26, 
40, 44, 54, 55, 57, 58, 63, 68, 101, 133, 
174, 175, 204, 205, 208, 234, 246, 247, 
255, 260, 261, 280, 465; his brothers, 
255, 280 (see Opochancanough, Otiotan, 
Istan, Itopatin, Sassapen) ; his daugh- 
ter, 212 ; his father, 204 ; his river, 203 ; 
see Wahunsenacawh, 40. 

Poyntz, John, see Pountis. 

Pratt, Richard, 619. 

Prerogative, the King's, xvi, 249, 251, 
586,652. 

Presidents of the King's Council in Vir- 
ginia, see E. M. Wingfield ; J. Ratcliffe ; 
J. Smith ; G. Percy. 

Price, Rev. Daniel, 80, 100; John, 613, 
617 ; William, 613. 

Prices of commodities, 557, 563, 569 ; low, 
398 ; i wives, 455 ; see Tobacco. 

Prichard, Mr., 560. 

Prickett, see Pirkett. 

Primates of all England, see Archbishops 
of Canterbury. 

Prime Ministers, see Secretaries of State. 

Prin (Pring, etc.), Edmund, 5.35 ; John, 
535, 549, 581, 630 ; Captain *Martin, 9, 
15, 442, 481 ; see Prynn. 

Prisoners at Jamestown, 191, 192, 204. 

Private, adventurers, 253, 486 ; planta- 
tions, 250, 254, 275, 276, 308, 314, 319, 
327, 354, 371, 372, 379, 407, 429, 433, 
454, 627, 628 ; see Lands, division of ; 
trading voyages, see Ships. 

Privy Council of James I., vi, viii, ix, xv, 
xxi, 3, 10, 14, 16, 20, 50, 51, 84, 119, 
147, 151, 161, 185, 199, 200, 214, 217, 
218, 222, 234, 248, 263-266, 296, 344, 



340, 341, 850, 353, 377-360, 367, 368, 
386-390, 403, 425, 429-439, 448-451, 
458, 478-485, 489-491, 494-496, 518- 
527, 530-532, 535-556, 559-562, 569, 
572-574, 579, 582, 583, 585, 587-591, 
598-601, 609, 611, 632-636, 640, 652; 
of Charles I., 640-644. 

Proclamations by the Governor in Vir- 
ginia, 254, 255, 258, 287, 473, 564. 

Proctor, John, 535, 536, 613, 617, 630. 

Proposition for advancing the plantation 
(colony), 384, 410; see Government. 

" Prospero," 114. 

Prosser, Walter, 413. 

Protection, 434; protectionists, see Poli- 
tics. 

Protestant, 2 ; ministers, 183, 184. 

Protestantism, xviii, 112, 175, 558; see 
Church; Religion. 

Providence shaping our national destiny, 
xvii, XX, 20, 42, 74, 75, 85, 99, 106, 115, 

143, 169, 173, 237, 263, 514, 603, 648- 
652. 

Provisions, 58, 282, 283, 471, 577; see 
Supplies ; Victuals, etc. 

Pruson, or Spruson, *Hildebrand, 444. 

Prynn, see Prin. 

Psalmanazar, George, xiii. 

Public burthens, taxes, etc., 321, 411. 

Public estate, 253, 254, 309, 346, 433 ; 
taken by the Crown, 635, 6-36; see 
Fauna sent to Virginia, Lands, Ser- 
vants, Tenants, etc., belonging to the 
Public and the Company. 

Public lettei-s from Vii'ginia, see Archer, 
Ratcliffe, G. Percy, Strachey, Rolfe, 
Pory, G. Sandys, Davison ; to Virginia, 
see T. Smythe, R. Johnson, J. and N. 
Ferrar, E. Sandys ; see also under Evi- 
dences. 

Public works interrupted by the mas- 
sacre and by James I., 493, 632. 

Puckering, *Sir Thomas, 216, 217. 

Purchas, *Rev. Samuel, 8, 56, 115, 119, 
184, 187, 198, 203, 239, 246, 247, 282, 
364,372,416,477, 594, 603, 636, 637; 
his Pilgrimage and his Pilgrimes, 636, 
637. 

Putin Bay, see Poetan. 

Puttock, Lieutenant, 138. 

Pyrame, Mr. (M. P.), 401. 

Pyott, *Richard, 274, 351. 

Queen's Creek, 322. 
Quentin, *Father, 191, 192. 
Quirank Mountains, 28, 34. 
Quixos, 109. 

Quo Warranto suit, 685-589, 601, 602, 
633, 637, 638. 

Ragged Island, 94. 

Rainsford, *Sir Henry, 269, 365, 368. 406. 

Ralegh. *Sir Walter, 1, 6, 9, 48, 105, 121, 

144, 261, 269, 291, 357, 395, 396 ; his 
son, 498. 



INDEX 



679 



Kamsden, *Mrs. Millieent, 342. 

Ramnsius, Baptista, 1G4. 

Ranger of the Forest, 258. 

Rappahannock (Pembroke) River, 173, 
174. 

Ratcliffe, *Captain John, x, 12, 22, 24, 30, 
53, 54, 61, (58, 70, 71, 73, 74, 92, 93, 95, 
96, 99, 108, 109, 112, 113, 118,507,650. 

Ratcliffe (Eng.), 11, 452^ 

Ravens, Henry, 115. ^ 

Ravenserofte (Raynscrofte), *Wm,, 402. 

Rawlins, Noadiah, 351. 

Rayner, Marmaduke, 264, 326, 362, 373, 
379, 418, 454, 536, 537. 

Read, James, 53 ; Joane, 444 ; Thomas, 
375, 416, 482, 617. 

Reading (Eng.), 222. 

" Reasons for raising a fund," 5. 

Recorder of Virginia, 53. 

Records, see Evidences. 

Reed, Edward, 83. 

" Register of Councell Causes," 234. 

Religion, pertaining to, xxiii, 175, 246, 
386 ; Brownists, 530 ; clergymen, 462 ; 
divines, 120 ; Dort, synod of, 291 ; inde- 
pendents, 630, 631 ; Luther, 439; min- 
isters, xii, 183, 184, 256, 327, 342, 349, 
350, 356, 375, 378, 426, 453, 473, 630- 
632 (their salaries, 567) ; Nonconform- 
ists, 116, 271, 272, 630 ; parishes in Vir- 
ginia, 254, 287, 460; parsonage, 209; 
planting of Christianitj^, 4, 6, 31, 248 ; 
Puritan, 193 ; Reformation, 5, 250, 427, 
558, 597 ; Separatists, 530 ; seven arti- 
cles of the church of Leyden, 252, 272 ; 
see Church ; Communion ; Cross, set up ; 
England, Church of : Geneva ; Hugue- 
nots ; Indians, conversion of ; Lands, 
glebe ; Liberty ; Pilgrims ; Protest- 
antism ; Rome, Church of ; Sermons ; 
Walloons. 

Republican idea, origin of, 650 ; see Gov- 
ernment ; Politics ; Petitions. 

Revolutionary (1776) forefathers, xxii, 
448. 

Reynolds, *Henry, 146, 491 ; *Humphrev, 
360 ; Mr., 390,"474, 494. 

Rich, *Sir Henry and Lady, 491 ; Lady 
Isabella, 294 ; *Sir Nathaniel, 299, 301, 
337-341, 343, 348, 351, 352, .356-359, 
363, 445, 496, 519, 522, 528-530, 533, 
583, 584, 597; *Robert (author), 142, 
190; Sir Robert (Judge), 259, 448; 
*Sir Robert (afterwards Lord Rich 
and Earl of Warwick), 236, 267, 273, 
279, 280, 282, 284, 287-289, 292, 294, 
297, 299, 305, 310-313, 315, 326, 337- 
343, 348, 353, 357-359, 363, 368, 398, 
424, 444, 445, 519, 522, 524, 525, 529, 
542, 557, 583, 639. 

Richardson, Sir Thomas, 393. 

Richmond (Virginia), 29. 

Rider, Edward, 029 ; Mr., 490. 

" Right ends declared," 85, 223, 237, 648 ; 
see Objects. 



Rio Jordan, 88-90, 110, 112. 

Risely, Thomas, 369. 

Rivanna River, 33, 69, 70. 

Roanoke, or Ronoque, Colony, 54, 65, 88, 
90; Island, 114,379,391. 

Roberts, *Elias, Sr., 245, 351, 477 ; Elias, 
Jr., 477 ; Mr., 428. 

Robeson, James, 613. 

Robins, or Robbins, Colonel, 421 ; John, 
416. 

Robinson (a clerk), 292; John, 54; Rev. 
John, 262-264, 341 ; *Mary, 275, 286. 

Rochdale Hundred, 194, 210. 

Rocheford, 519. 

" Rock Hall," 209. 

Rodolph II., 65. 

Rodriquez, Domingo, 88 ; Juan, 88, 109. 

Roe, *Sir Thomas, 14, 49, 104, 121, 234, 
355, 362, 366, 385-387, 389, 398, 402, 
426, 431, 491. 

Rogers, *Edward, 14. 

Rolfe, Bermuda, 116; Jane, 132; John, 
116, 132, 173, 190, 196, 203-205, 208, 
224, 225, 230, 233-236, 243, 246, 247, 
253, 258, 260, 279, 280, 310, 317, 326, 
412, 456, 467, 621, 622 ; Rebecca, 203, 
224, 230, 233, 246, 247 (see Pocahontas) ; 
Thomas, 224, 230, 246, 260, 279. 

RoUes, Benedict, Jane, Richard, 413. 

Roman Empire, 65. 

Rome, Church of, xviii, 1, 2, 5, 18, 111- 
113, 180, 183, 186, 189, 270, 408, 439, 
558, 592 ; members of, 12, 58, 65, 79, 
88, 111, 112, 175, 211, 212, 269, 558; 
see French ; Jesuits ; the Pope ; Spain. 

Romney, *Sir William, 9 ; Lady, 501. 

Roper, Mr., 629. 

Rossawick, 70. 

Rosse, or Rose, Thomas, 619. 

Rossingham, Ensign Edmund, 310, 313- 
315, 318, 376, 417. 

RothschUds, 33. 

Rowe, see Roe. 

Rowland, Henry, 390. 

Rowsley, Dr. William, 513, 629; his 
brother, 513. 

Royal Commissions, 646, 647 (see Com- 
missions) ; Court, 223 (see Courts) ; 
Government, 9 (see Government) ; 
Instructions, 646,647 (see Instructions). 

" Ruben," 241, 

Rudyerd, Sir Benjamin, 592. 

Ruggle, or Ruggles, George, 455, 463, 
491. 

Rumney, see Romney. 

Russell, *Edward, Earl of Bedford, 295 ; 
Sir Francis, 122 ; Mr., " the chiraist," 
395, 409 ; WiUiam, 113 ; *Sir WUliam, 
476. 

Sabine. John, 414. 

Sackville, *Sir Edward, 367, 382, 386, 
401, 445, 481, 484, 485, 494, 496, 519, 
522, 524, 527, 533, 538; Richard, see 
Earl of Dorsett. 



680 



INDEX 



Sagadahoc River, 135, 

St. John, Lieutenant, 308 ; Lord, of Bas- 
ing, 501 ; Oliver, Viscount Grandison, 
842, 480, 538, 543, 547, 550, 555, 593 ; 
*Sir William, 444, 

Saint, St,, and S- : Andrew's Church, 527 ; 
Augustine, 87, 88, 91, 109, 111, 112, 
152; Christopher's Island, 581, Pariah, 
275, 486; Croix, 193; Dionis Church, 
248; George, red cross of, 203, 204; 
George's Fort, 63, 77 ; James' Day, 91, 
110; " John de IJloa," 412; Lawrence 
River, 178; Mary's Church in Virginia, 
275, 286; Michael's Church, 490; 
Olave, 275; Paul's Cross, 300, 363; 
Paul's Church, 179, 232, 363, 477; 
Sithe's Lane, 343 ; Sythe'a Church, 
451 ; Vincent's Island, 512. 

Salford, Christopher, 613 ; John, 622, 
624 ; Robert, 613, 62.3. 

Salisbury, Earls of, see Robert and Wil- 
liam Cecil. 

Salisbury side of James River, 29, 45. 

Salisbury (Eng.), 244. 

Salmon, John, 282, 350 ; Mr., 299, 

Salt, 176, 193, 284, 379, 460, 478 ; house, 
420 ; works, 25-3^ 327, 379, 463, 465, 

Saltingstone, *Sir Samuel, 265. 

Sampson, Mr., 474. 

Sands, sje Sandys. 

Sandwich, 147, 167, 298, 

Sandy Point, 418, 

Sandys (Sands, etc.), Anne, 393 ; Rev. 
David, 631 ; *Sir Edwin, see infra ; 
Edwin, archbishop of York, 250, 262 ; 
Edwin, son of Sir Samuel, 452 ; *George, 
393, 398, 422, 426, 453, 455, 460, 463- 
465, 471, 472, 475, 500, 502-504, 510, 
511, 514, 536, 564, o67, 570, 571, 579, 
600, 610, 614, 616, 621, 626, 627, 639, 
646 ; *Henry, 498 ; Sir Myles, 510 ; 
Robert and Samuel, 651 ; *Sir Samuel, 
252, 393, 394, 4-52, 510. 

Sandys, *Sir Edwin, iii, vi, xviii, xix, 14, 
16, 17, 74, 75, 122, 147, 148, 166, 167, 
225, 242-244, 249-252, 262-268, 289, 
292, 293, 301, 306-309, 315, 328, .329, 
334-369, 372, 381-390, .394-410, 419, 
422-425, 433-442, 445, 454-457, 481, 
483, 491, 493, 495, 498, 510, 522, 523, 
526-531, 538, 542, 557, 658, 587, 594, 
595, 597, 599, 600,_ 632, 635, 636, 640, 
649-651 ; his administration as treas- 
urer or governor, 333-381 ; as assistant 
to, 242-332, 382-632 ; his first arrest, 
424, 425, 435, 436, 458 ; second, 526 ; 
third, 531, 550-590; his house, 336, 
346, 353. 

Sanford, Thomas, 371. 

Santa Elena, 88. 

Santee Indians, 90. 

Santiago, Juan de, 88, 91. 

Santo Domingo, 55. 
Sargasso Sea, 23. 
Sasenticum, 133. 



Sassafras, 153, 259, 278, 298, 346, 395, 

457, 502, 503, 562 ; tea, 395, 409 ; see 

Flora, 
Sassapen, 475, 
Saunders, Edmund, 414, 
Saussaye, Capta'.n, 191, 214, 217, 
Savage, John, 421; *Thomas, 58, 205, 

288, 379, 418, 420, 421, 460, 613; his 

dividend, 62i-. 
Savage Islands (West Indies), 370. 
SaviUe, William, 44.5. 
Savoy, Duke of, 267, 284, 285. 
Scarnafissi, Count, 267, 
Scheuken Schans, 489, 
Schools, 248, 429, 441-443, 474, 497 ; see 

Indians, education of ; School Lands. 
Scotland, 248, 249, 252, 4.35, 629. 
Scott, *Anthony, 129, 132 ; *George, 523, 

533, 535, 537 ; Mr., 444 ; *Sir John, 14; 

Rev. Thomas, 269 ; Walter, 613- 
Scottsville (Virginia), 70. 
Scrivener, *Matthew, 55, 57, 61, 69, 70, 

87, 93, 118. 
Scrooby Manor, 252, 
" Sea (the) to aU as free as the air," 

.388; free to both companies, 349; 

fight with Spanish ships, 415, 416 ; 

meawes, or mells, 116, 
•'Seating Place," 25. 
Seaward, Isaac, 350 ; Rev. Samuel, 482, 
Secretaries of State: see R, Cecil (1606- 

1612) ; James I. (1612-1614) ; R. Win- 

wood (1614-1617); T. Lake (1616- 

1619); R. Nauntou (1618-1622); G. 

Calvert (1619-1624) ; E. Conway (1623- 

1624), 
Seed, mustard, 394; the, xxii, 99, 332, 

408, 501, 650, 651, 
Selden, *John, 329, 385, 435-437, 489. 
Sermons, annual, 429, 430, 490, 491 ; at 

Jamestown, 31 ; thanksgiving, 3(X), 

451 ; see Religion, 
Servants, 258, 311, 312, 320, 323, 346, 

348, 351, 464, 581, 618, 620, 622, 624, 

625. 
Seville, 13, 180-182. 
Seymour, Attorney-General in 1692, 213 ; 

Edward, Earl of Hertford, 146, 635; 

*Edward, 14 ; Rev. Richard, 16. 
Shacley, *WiUiam, 342. 
Shakespeare, *WilIiam, 115, 134. 
Shares, see Lands. 
Sharpe, John, 211, 229; Samuel, 314, 

318, 571, 579, 580, 613, 619 ; William, 

613, 619. 
Sharpless, Edward, 568, 584. 
Shawe, William, 376. 
Sheffield, *Edmund, Lord, 115, 216, 244, 

294, 367, 410, 424, 444, 455 ; Thomas, 

617. 
Shelley, *Walter, 314, 318. 
Shepard (Shepherd, etc.), Thomas, 336, 

382, 410, 465, 460, 590. 
Sherbrook, Humphrey, 416. 
Sherife, Richard, Sr. a7id Jr., 371. 



INDEX 



681 



Sierley, Henry, 266 ; *Sir Thomas, 266. 
Sherley Hundred, 308, 314, 322, 470. 
Shipman, W., 201. 

Shipbuilding in Virginia, 153, 176, 328 ; 
412, 474 ; carpenters, 260 ; wrights, 
463, 474, 502, 505, 562, 569. 
Ships, pertaining to, making voyages to 
and from the colonies, etc. : Abigail, 
406, 419, 451, 489, 500-502, 505, 506, 
510, 513, 533, 568; " an adviso," 154, 
160, 189; Ambrose, 516; Ann, 565, 
566, 614, 640, 642, 646 ; Argall's ships, 
86; Argall's northern voyages, 202, 
214, 217 ; Asuncion de Christo, 87, 88 ; 
"Bark of Adviso," 115 ; barque to Som- 
ers Islands, 471, 516 ; barque from Can- 
ada, 516 ; Bennett's ships, 475, 568 ; 
Biiigley's voyage, 18 ; Blessing. 92, 109, 
127, 134, 140, 200 ; Bona Nova, 828, 
335, 342, 344, 366, 368, 370, 372, 375, 
387, 409, 410, 412, 417, 428, 430, 469- 
471, 621, 622 ; Bona Venture, 364, 377, 
391, 473; Bonny Be«s, 523, 559, 560, 
569; Butler's barque, 500; canowes, 
288 ; carvell, Spanish, 152-154 ; earvell, 
English, 156; catch, 92, 97; Charity, 
474 ; Charles, 427, 453, 470 ; Concord, 
461,464; Conqueror, 504; Dainty, 125, 
136, 144 ; Dale's ships, 145. 156 ; De la 
Warr, 127. 132, 138; Deliverance, 116, 
127, 155; Dermer's bark, 375; Dia- 
mond, 92, 109 ; Diana, 308, 309, 325, 
327, 355, .856; Discovery, 12, 22, 89, 
53, 127, 137 ; 124 ; 428, 430, 469-472, 
484; Due Return, 581, 610; Dutch 
man-of-war, 325-327, 359, 367 ; Dutch 
ships, 380, 470, 515; Duty, 351, 375, 
417 ; East India ships, 261, 442, 443, 
481, 482; Edwin, 231, 250, 253, 256, 
258-260, 267, 299. 308, 328; Ellinor, 
287, 299, 300, 334, 420; Elizabeth, 
149, 154, 160, 162, 185, 188-191, 196- 
199, 202, 208, 214, 218, 387, 409, 428, 
469, 471 ; English ships, 156, 157, 162, 
163, 167, 170, 171, 180, 185, 210, 258, 
263, 290, 296-299, 327, 334, 380, 451, 
535, 556, 589, 593, 638; Falcon, 92, 
109, 353, 376 ; fishing voyages, see 
Fishing; fleets, 54, 85, 92, 97, 98. 105, 
106, 110, 118, 120, 127, 156, 182; Fly- 
ing Hart, or Flying Horse, of Flushing, 
224, 231, 459, 644 ; Flushing man-of- 
■war, 324, 326, 327, ;356, 362, 373 ; For- 
tune, 425, 436 ; Francis Bona Venture, 
see Bona Venture ; French ships, 145, 
148, 191, 192, 195, 217 ; Furtherance, 
474, 479, 516, 582 ; Garland, 341, 359, 
430, 612 ; George, 247, 252-256, 268, 
272, 277-280, 285, 292, 308, 311, 313, 
361, 372, 427, 4.50, 451, 453, 461, 462, 
546, 548, .549, 560, 570, 582, 595, 601 ; 
; Gift of God, 17, 52, 276, 285, 286, 311, 
339, 344, 473, 5.33 ; God's Gift, 533. 
568; God's Helpe, 428; Godspeed, 
473 ; Goodspeed, 12, 22, 39 ; Gooking's 



ship, 512 ; Gorges' pinnace, 309 ; Gor- 
ges' ship, 566 ; Grace of God, 145, 148, 
178 ; Great HopeweU, 549, 571, 581 ; 
Half Moon, 92, 105 ; Hauham and 
Bring. 9, 15 ; Harley and Hobson, 164 ; 
Hercules, 128, 134, 138-140, 144, 149, 
160 ; Hopewell, 256, 277, 430, 469, 502, 
504, 546, 549, 561 ; Hunt and Smith, 
200; from Ireland, 420; Jacob, 546, 
549, 581 ; James (or Little James ?), 
486, 498, 499, 503, 506, 646 ; John and 
Francis, 50, 55, 158, 160, 172, 180, 220, 
224, 231, 490, 509 ; Jonathan (Brother 
Jonathan ?) 349, 376 ; Joseph. 391 ; 
Katharine, 566 ; Lawne's ship, 288, 
299, 323 ; Lion, 92, 109 ; Little James, 
see James ; London Merchant, 352, 363, 
376, 391 ; Madre de Dios, 178 ; maga- 
zine ships, 259-261, 268, 271, 277, 285, 

311, 842 ; Margaret, 345 ; Margaret 
and John, 391, 415, 416, 512, 513, 515 ; 
Marmaduke, 428, 450, 4.53, 454, 464, 
546. 549, 581 ; Martha, 187, 197 ; Mary 
and John, 17, 51 ; Mary and Margaret, 
63, 68, 70 ; Mary Margaret, 311, 364, 
370, 371, 374, 470; Marvgold, 311; 
Mayflower, 387, 407-409, 424, 468, 612, 
651 ; Muscovy fleet, 187 ; from New- 
foundland, 516; Neptune, 281-284; 
New Netherland, 514 ; North Virginia 
ships, 63, 64, 06 ; open boat from Som- 
ers Islands, 236; "passage by sea," 
xix., 23, 73, 98, 106, 142, 143, 159, 
253 ; Patience, 116, 127, 160 ; Phcenix, 
50, 55, 59, 62; pirates, 20, 105, 256, 
326, 358, 367, 368, 370, 412 ; Planta- 
tion, 490 ; Plough, 168, 180 ; Pountis 
his ship, 295, 299, 312, 323 ; 507, 508, 
567 ; Primrose, 473 ; Pring and Han- 
ham, 9, 15 ; private trading voyages, 
290, 297, 299, 327, 328; Prosperous, 
149, 155, 161, 312; Providence, 52; 
Return, 581, 587; Richard, 9, 51; St. 
Anthony, 440 ; Sampson, 288, 2vt8, 310, 

312, 328; Samuel, 516; Sarah, 156, 
164, 171, 173, 180 ; Sarah Constant, 12, 
22, 39, 171 ; Sea Adventure, 92, 94, 97, 
109, 114 ; Sea Flower, 403, 467, 471, 
481, 488, 504, 507, 508, 516 ; shallops, 
25, 626 ; Silver Falcon, 297-299 ; Smith 
and Hunt, 200 ; Somers Islands pin- 
nace, 257 ; Southampton, 489, 500, 
556, 560; Spanish fleets, 51, 87, 111, 

154, 155, 180, 181, 184-187, 501 ; Span- 
ish ships, 20, 87, 88, 148, 152-156, 160, 
161, 181, 217, 267, 300, 325, 412, 415, 
416, 440, 645 ; Sparrow, 474 ; Star, 149, 

155, 157, 162; Success, 500; Supply, 
388, 413, 414, 470, 621; Susan, 235, 
238, 256 ; SwaUow, 92, 109, 124, 125 ; 
Swan of Barnstaple, 156, 363, 376, 391 ; 
Swan (Weston's), 609 ; Temperance, 
407, 412, 423, 453 ; Tiger, 428, 461, 
507, 508; Treasurer, 172, 174, 175, 
178, 190-193, 203, 204, 212, 213, 217, 



682 



INDEX 



218, 222, 224, 229, 233, 267, 282-285, 
300, 311, 312, 324-327, 334, 339,355- 
360, 362, 368, 370, 391, 421, 519, 524 ; 
Trial, 156, 158, 179, 182, 312, 324, 353, 
376; Truelove, 486, 499, 502, 503, 546, 
548, 568 ; Unity, 92, 109 ; Virgin, 644, 
646 ; Virginia, 64, 84, 92, 108, 112, 113, 
126-128, 153, 156 ; Warwick, 359, 428, 
450, 459, 461, 462, 464 ; West Indian 
voyages, 270 ; White Lion, 473 ; Wil- 
liam and John, 494, 568 ; William and 
Thomas, 271, 272, 285, 311, 334, 342 ; 
see Boats ; Currents of the ocean ; Gulf- 
stream ; Maury's charts. 

Shortridge, Jeffery, 113. 

Shrewsbury, Earl of, see Gilbert Talbot. 

Sibley, Sidley, or Sidney, John, 624. 

Sickly season, 40, 60, 86, 129, 132, 138, 
154, 188, 239, 288, 289, 473, 475. 

Sickness, 62, 92, 97, 98, 105, 108, 113, 
134, 136, 137, 142, 143, 155, 213, 
256, 260, 281, 321, 327-329, 377, 380- 
382, 411, 419, 503-506, 510, 513, 515, 
516, 541, 509, 612; see Census; Dis- 
eases. 

Sidney, *Sir Philip, 1, 6, 115; *Robert, 
Viscount Lisle and Earl of Leicester, 
104, 115, 444. 

Silk, 208, 379, 423, 429, 454, 458, 465, 478, 
479, 488, 489, 501, 562, 569; flax, 320; 
grass, 208, 373, 379, 463, 503 ; works, 
429. 

Silk-worms, 202, 208, 255, 410, 416, 417, 
419, 488 ; seed, 416, 462, 469, 503, 505 ; 
see iVIulberry trees. 

SUver, 106, 136, 188, 269, 270, 399, 440, 
577. 

Simons, Richard, 619. 

Siouan tribes, 70, 112. 

Sipsey, John, 624. 

Sizemoure, Martha, 241 ; William, 619. 

Skore, Symon, 136. 

Slany, *Humphrey, 360, 526. 

Slaughter, Rev. Philip, 285. 

Sleigh, James, 613. 

Smaley, Captain, 228 ; widow, 585. 

Smith,' *George, 333, 451 ; Joan, 613 ; 
John of Virginia (four), 613, 626; 
*John of Nibley, 297, 300, 345, 354, 
355, 371-374, 388, 391, .395, 397, 402, 
406, 409, 414, 462, 509, 52.3, 536 ; *Cap- 
tain John, iii-xvii, xx-xxii, 22, 24, 27, 
28, 32, 42, .53-57, 59-63, 68-71, 87, 93- 
99, 105, 108, 109, 118, 119, 121, 146, 
147, 200, 240, 246, 247, 280, 325, 
395, 422, 469, 540, 554, 590, 609, 614- 
616, 635, 636 (his publications, see 
under Evidences) ; *Robert, 382, 385, 
410, 460, 480, 481, 526; *Captain 
Roger, 373, 392, 419, 426, 452, 4.56, 
504, .509, 511, 514, 564, 610, 614, 616, 
621, 639, 646; *Sir Thomas (clerk 
of the Council), 14 ; Captain Tho- 
mas, 469 ; *Sii- William, 300 ; William, 
369. 



Smith or Smythe, *Sir Thomas, xix, 1, 
9, 13, 44, 46-48, 62, 73, 76, 85, 104, 120, 
137, 142, 160, 162, 163, 168, 169, 171, 
173, 189, 215, 219, 221, 222, 231, 235, 
242-244, 248, 249, 251, 255, 259, 267- 
269, 272, 276, 280, 284, 289, 292, 294- 
297, 299, 305-307, 310, 315, 328, 329, 
334-337, 342, 343, 350, 359, 365-368, 
381, 382, 384, 430, 444, 446, 447, 453, 
478-480, 484, 506, 517, 518, 522, 523, 
557, 558, 570-573, 579, 590, 591, 594, 
595, 634, 638, 640-642 ; his administra- 
tion of the company, 73-332, 289, 307, 
328-332, 384, 453, 478, 506, 641 ; his 
house, 343, 362, 384, 638; see Bar- 
grave. 

Smith's or Smythe's Hundred, 256, 276, 
286, 291, 314, 350, 355, 356, .365, 373 ; 
Island, 173, 205, 379, 420. 

Smithsonian Institution, 112. 

Soane, *Joseph and Martha, 594; Sid- 
rake, 264, 594. 

Solicitor generals, see J. Doderidge (1606- 
1607) ; F. Bacon (1607-1613) ; H. Yel- 
verton (1613-1617) ; T. Coventry (1617- 
1621) ; R. Heath (1621-1624). 

Somers, *Sir George, 6, 76, 84, 92. 102, 
.114, 116, 122, 131, 132, 135, 160, 163, 
173, 178, 331, 395 ; *Matthew, 92, 160, 
422, 480. 

Somers Islands Company, 200, 231, 256, 
277, 300, 326, 334, 348, 352, 359, 368, 
387, 390, 391, 399-402, 431, 434, 443, 
478, 488, 520, 527, 532, 568 ; see Ber- 
mudas. 

Somerset, *Edward, Earl of Worcester, 
538, 555. 

Somerset, Earl of, see Robert Carr. 

Somersetshire, 291, 292. 

Southampton, Earl of, see H. Wriothesley. 

Southampton House, 343, 349, 367 ; Hun- 
dred, 286, 365, 385, 408, 418, 441-443, 
470, 502, 618, 621, 627, 628 ; river, 135, 
136, 149, 309, 323, 623. _ _ 

Southampton-Sandys administration, 382- 
632. 

South Carolina, 88, 89, 110, 112. 

Southern Tribes, 113. 

Southerne, John, 503, 571, 579, 584, 621, 
622. 

Southerton, Elias, 497. 

Southey, Henry, 629. 

South Sea (the Pacific Ocean), xviii, 28, 
57-62, 70, 92, 106, 153, 165, 187, 196, 
417, 460, 487, 577, 617. 

Spain, Infanta of, 191, 440 ; kings of, 
412, 433, 439, 440 (see Philip III. and 
IV.) ; power of, 592 ; queen of, 161. 

Spain and Spaniards, xviii, 1-3, 6, 11, 
13-20, 29, 36, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 52, 
63-65, 75, 82, 85-88, 90, 91, 109-113, 
124, 125, 144-148, 152-155, 161, 163, 
164, 177, 178, 180-183, 185-187, 189, 
198, 199, 204, 216, 231-234, 237, 243, 
244, 267, 270, 276, 284, 288, 291, 292, 



INDEX 



683 



295, 325, 356-358, 360, 367, 388, 308- 
400, 412, 416, 439, 440, 467, 469, 576, 
591-593, 595, 640. 

Spanish agents in England, 334, 357, 359 ; 
(see " Padre Maestro," and Ulloa) ; am- 
bassadors, 121, 170, 232, 277, 501 (see 
Gondomar, Velasco, and Zuiiiga) ; Ar- 
mada, 88, 184 ; cargo, 325 ; consulta- 
tions, 177 ; Council of " Haziendo," 181 ; 
Council of' State, 15, 16, 20, 50-52, 58, 
63, 144, 187, 197, 269; Council or 

: Board of War, 16, 52, 144, 161, 197 ; 

, Council of the West Indies, 199; Do- 
minions, 285 (see Florida, Mexico, New 
Spain, West Indies, etc.) ; expeditions to 
Virginia, see Ecija, and Molina ; fleets, 
see under Ships ; hides, prizes, etc., 256, 
257, 279 (see Argall, the ship Treasurer, 
Captain John Powell, Tucker, etc.) ; 
Indies, 2, 16 (see Dominions) ; in- 
fluence, 180. 440; invasion, 184, 185, 
194, 501 ; marriages, 64, 124, 144, 591, 
595 ; mines, 439, 592 ; naval service, 
186 ; party in England, 306 (see under 
Polities, etc.) ; prison, 51 ; prisoners at 
Jamestown, 155, 156, 161-163, 186- 
188, 191, 192, 196, 204, 211 ; reputa- 
tion, 49, 357 ; Roman Catholic missions, 
111, 112, 21] ; Secretary of State, 181, 
198; settlements in America, 111, 1.54, 
21 1 (see Dominions) ; ships, see under 
Ships ; soldiers, 88 ; spies, see Spies ; 
tobacco, 343, 344, 398-402, 599 (see 
Tobacco) ; Varinas, 344 ; West Indies, 
see West Indies ; " wrongs," 16, 17 ; 
war, 592, 593, 595. 

Sparkes, Robert, 173. 

Sparrow, John, 590 ; *Stephen, 353. 

Speaker of the House of Commons, 597. 

Spelman (Spillman, etc.), *Captain 
Henry, 95, 137, 160, 282, 312, 321, 472, 
489, 507, 508, 567 ; Sir Henry, 489 ; 
Thomas, 623. 

Spelman's (Captain Henry) divident, 620, 

Spence, Wilham, 314, 318, 613, 622. 

Spencer or Spenser, William, 613, 621. 

Spies, for England, 186 ; for Spain, 160, 
163, 167, 177, 212, 218. 

Spiller, Sir Henry, 521, 585. 

Spinola, 388. 

Squibb, Captain Thomas, 490. 

Stacy, Master, 136, 245 ; Robert, 314. 

Staffordshire, 379. 

Stallinge, Captain Edward, 286, 309 ; Jas- 
per, 416 ; *William, 84. 

Stamp Act, 650. 

Staples, Richard, 622 ; Rev. Robert, 451, 
631. 

Star Chamber, 402, 596. 

Staresmore, Sabin, 264, 272. 

"Starving time," 118. 

States General of Holland, 144, 145, 200, 
218, 449, 450, 645. 

Stationers' Company, 214 ; Hall, 120, 142, 
160, 162, 186, 451. 



Stephens, or Stevens, Richard, 445, 536, 
538, 561, 571, 579, 582, 608, 621. 

Stepney, John, 120 ; Thomas, 613. 

Steward, * Augustine, 350. 

Stewart, James, 629. 

Stiles, Mr., 476. 

Stock, see Joint stock. 

Stockton, Rev. Jonas, 418, 631. 

Stokes, or Stoaks, Mr., 309. 

Stone, John, 613 ; William, 351, 371. 

Stoneman, John, 51. 

Store, see Magazine. 

Story, Judge, 330. 

Stout, John and Robert, 482. 

Strachey, *Wmiam, 69, 80, 114, 116, 117, 
128-131, 134, 150, 151, 155, 157, 162, 
178. 

Strange, John, 336, 590 ; Philip, 413. 

Strode (Strowde, etc.), *Sir William, 401. 

Stuart, *Queen Anne, 64, 246, 247, 300, 
469; *Prince Charles, 135, 210, 238, 
291, 360, 440, 478, 591, 595, 599, 
Charles I., 56, 70, 273, 331, 557, 636, 
640-649 ; *Princess EUzabeth, 179, 181, 
185, 186, 377, 542 ; *Prince Henry, 25, 
33, 124, 1.35, 151, 155, 1.57, 164, 178, 
182, 189, 200, 212, 237, 238 ; *James I., 
see infra ; James, of Virginia, 629 ; 
*Ludovic, Duke of Lenox, 361, 362, 
365, 389, 425, 526, 538, 591, OJiS ; 
♦Frances, Duchess of Lenox, 635, 637. 

Stuart, *King James I., v, vi, viii, xi, 74, 
75, 85, 97, 102, 124, 139, 141, 162, 165, 
171, 177-182, 185-188, 196-201, 205, 
215-237, 247-252, 262, 265, 270, 273, 
280, 292-296, 300, 316, 331, 334, 335, 
346, 348, 351, 352, 364, 367-369, 383, 
384, 387-389, 393, 394, 397, 401-405, 
412, 423, 426-428, 431-441, 449, 458, 
476-484, 488-492, 494, 496, 508-510, 
517-520, 523-526, 531-535, 539-544, 
547, 549, 551-556, 561, 562, 570, 572, 
574, 579, 581, 584, 586-594, -596-599, 
602, 603, 605, 641-643, 651 ; his admin- 
istrations, 1-72, 632-640 ; liis picture in 
Virginia, 473 (when was it presented to 
the Indian King ?). 

Stubbins, Thomas, 369. 

Stubbs, Mr., 390. 

Studley, *Thomas, 42. 

Sturgeon's Point, 256. 

Sturton, Robert, 245. 

Stuteville, *SiT Martin, 488. 

Subscribers, 147, 148 ; see Adventurers. 

Subscription rolls, 141, 165, 537-539, 546, 
548-550, 562. 

Suckling, *Sir John, 526, 538, 634. 

Suffolk, Earl of, see Thomas Howard. 
Suffolk (Eng.). 222. 

Suits : Breach of promise, 563, 564, 571, 
594 ; Canning v. Keightley, 589, 590 ; 
Prince Charles v. The Lord Treasurer, 
59.^, 597-599 ; Company v. Delinquents, 
187 ; Martin v. Yeardley, 591, 609, 610 ; 
see Argall-Treasurer- Warwick ; Bar- 



684 



INDEX 



grave v. Smythe ; Company v. The 
Cro'WTi, under Charter rights and Quo 
Warranto ; Subject v. The Crown, 
under the Cape Cod fishery case. 

Sully, Thomas, 613, 621. 

Sunnibanck, Doctor, 477. 

Supplies, 183, 184, 277, 283,409,420,462, 
486. 487, 499, 533, 537-539, 546, 548- 
550, 559-563, 568, 569, 618, 620, 623, 
624 ; see Commodities ; Corn ; Provi- 
sions ; Victuals. 

Surry County, Virginia, 313. 

Surveyors, 146, 147, 235, 243, 319, 320, 

^ 422, 423, 445, 454 ; see Engineers. 

busquehanna River, 60. 

Sussex (Eng.), 379, 542. 

Sutcliffe, *Rev. Dr. Matthew, 14. 

Sutt^i, Sir Richard, 521, 585. 

Swaine, or Swayne, Arthur, 369, 417, 494, 
644 ; Mr., 482 ; Thomas, William, 369. 

Swann, Mr., 482. 

Sweet, Robert, 508. 

Swift, *Ensigne James, 116, 173, 354, 892. 

Swinhowe, *George, 561 ; Thomas, 619. 

Switzerland, 250. 

Swye, J., 345. 

Symonds, *Rev. WiUiam, 80, 82, 83, 123. 

Tackonekintaco, 135. 

Talbot, *Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, 

100. 
Tanks, or Tanx, Powhatans, 473, 516; 

Wayonoke, 256, 322, 618, 619 ; Wya- 

nokes, 516. 
Tappahannocks, 287, 621. 
Tappahatonaks, 472. 
Tatum, Richard, 536, 560. 
Taverner, *John, 264, 300, 336. 
Tavistock 436. 
Taxes, 318, 320, 321, 411, 567, 579 ; see 

Tithes. 
Taylor, John, 371, 613, 623; Richard, 

613, 619. 
Tempests, 23, 92, 109, 110, 114-116, 142, 

278, 281 ; " The Tempest," 161. 
Tenants, 283, 320, 323, 336, 345, 346, 356, 

370, 376, 378, 379, 891, 411, 416, 419, 

420, 422, 461, 463, 486, 492, 493, 600, 

562, 600. 
Tew, or Tue, Mary, 259, 481. 
Thame Pai«k, 383. 

Thames, The, 2, 13, 26, 43, 83, 267, etc. 
Thanksgiving, see Sermons. 
Thet, *Father Gilbert du, 191. 
Thompson, Captain, 349, 376; David, 

566 ; Maurice, 536, 561, 622. 
Thorneburv, John, 36.5. 
Thornehill^ Sir Timothv, 497. 
Thorpe, *George, 297, 343, 345, 363, 371, 

372, 374, 376, 382, 388, 408, 410, 412- 

415, 418, 454, 455, 462, 466, 467, 500. 
Throckmorton, Elizabeth, Lady Dale, 

145 ; Sir Thomas, 145 ; *Sir William, 

297, 300, 345, 364, 371, 372. 
Tides, 116 ; tide-water Vii^inia, 249. 



Tilbury Fort, 353. 

Tindall, see Tyndall. 

Tindall's Shoals, 420, 501, 514. 

Tithes of com and tobacco, 567, 579. 

Tobacco, the first commodity found to re- 
pay the expense of cultivation and 
transportation, vii, 29, 185, 196, 201, 
215, 220, 232, 234, 235, 241, 244, 260, 
261, 263, 268, 297-299, 321, 346, 374, 
378, 409, 478, 479, 569, 578, 597, 599, 
600, 626, 627, 638, 641, 648; business, 
428, 431-434, 455-458, 462, 465, 466, 
483, 489, 503, 509 ; customs, duties, etc., 
335, 343, 344, 348, 350, 352, 364, 365, 
395, 496, 577, 594, 597 ; farming the 
impost offered to the company, 352, 
354 ; contract with Roe and others 
(1620-1621), 386, 387, 398, 402, 403, 
412, 422, 423, 426, 431 ; contract with 
Jacobs (1621-1622), 426, 4S4 ; contract 
with the Vii'ginia and Somers Islands 
companies (1622-1629), 483, 484. 493- 
497, 499, 509, 510, opposed by the 
Smythe party and dissolved by the 
crown, 496, 559, and the sole importa- 
tion of, offered the companies, 559, 569, 
577, 597, 599, 600, 641; planting in 
England, 351, 352, 400-402, 426; the 
business before Parliament, 400-402, 
422, 423. 597, 599, 600 ; free liberty 
asked for the trade, 395, 432, 434; 
crop of (1612), 173, 174, 190, 196, 208 
(sent to England by the Elizabeth ?) ; 
(1618), 192, 207, 208 (by the Treasurer 
and EUzabeth?) ; (1614), 207, 213, 224, 
228, 231 (by the John and Francis and 
Flying Hart?); (1615), 228, 229, 230, 
233 (the Treasurer) ; (1616), 226, 238, 
239, 240, 255 (the Susan and George) ; 
(1617), 253, 254, 257, 259, 260, 263, 267, 
268, 272, 278 (the Edwin, George, and 
Neptune) ; (1618), 278, 279, 281, 284, 
311, S43 (the William and Thomas) ; 
(1619), 311, 320, 361 (the design to 
cultivate tobacco with negro labor was 
probably first put into execution in the 
summer of 1619, 249, 288, 289, 325, 
326) ; (1620), sent to HoUand, 387, 391, 
414, 417, 431 ; (1621), 395, 432, 434, 
451, 462 ; (1622) owing to the massacre 
a short crop, sent to Holland, 495, 502, 
504 ; (1623) a good crop, 516, 566 ; plan- 
tation, xxi, 439 ; prices, 228, 254, 255, 
268, 279, 320, 321, 343, 344, 351, 562, 
563, 577 (sold by the candle, 299, 351) ; 
taxes, 434 ; tobacco-houses, 620, 623 ; 
trade for fish, 376 ; see John Rolfe. 

Tobacco, Rennet's Treatise on, 398-400. 

Tobacco-pipe monopoly, 273. 

Tobacco Point (Virginia), 322. 

" Tobacco, (The) Rowle " (London), 513. 

Tolere Creek, 70. 

Tomakin, 255 ; Tomaeomo, 246. 

Tomkins, Humphrey, 353. 

Tomlins, *Richard, 527, 528, 538. 



INDEX 



685 



'o's Point, 58. 
irphet, Stephen, 371. 
wer, The, 291, 484. 

)werson, Mr., 401 ; *WUliam, 274, .8.51. 
acy, Joice and Mary, 413 ; Thomas, 413, 
617 ; *William, 354, 364, 382,388, 410, 
413-415. 426. 
.•acy's Patent, 628. 

rado. Trading, 75, 320, 504, 609, 627, 
628 ; to Amsterdam, 431 ; Eastern shore, 
288, 420, 400, 625 ; fur, 377, 380, 430, 
448-450, 454, 470, 471 (with Indians 
and in Delaware and Hudson rivers) ; 
fish, see Fish, New England, and New- 
foundland ; West Indies, 14, 18, 19, 85 ; 
see Tobacco ; Treaty. 

'radescant, *John, 245, 514. 

'reasurer, the roving voyage of the ship, 
284. 285, 300, 311, 324-327, 333, 339- 
341, 356-360, 367, 368, .391. 

reasurers of the royal household : see W. 
KnoUys (1606-1614) ; E. Lord Wootton 
(1614-1618) ; T. Edmonds (1618-1624). 

Veaty with Spain, 1, 2, 17, 18, 51, 80, 
509. 

>oe, Richard, 621, 622. 

!'rench, 545 ; see Dutch gaps. 

'revor, *Su- John, 9, 498, 594. 

'rinidad, 147. 399. 

'nielove, Rowland, 427, 499, 536, 629. 

'ruelove Society Plantation, 499, 568. 

'ubman, Samuel, 2(>4. 

'uehin, or Tntchin, E., 581 ; Simon, 581, 
■ ^-0. 

jker, *Captain Daniel, 13, 16, 77, 132, 
.^56, J57, 300, 333, 390, 392, 422, 629 ; 
*John, 336 ; *William, 245, 309, 314, 
318, 402, 420, 502, 504, .509, 514, 516, 
571, 580, 613, 623, 624, 626, 046. 

'udor, *Queen Elizabeth, ix, xix, 6, 76, 
178, 262. 

UG. S€€ Tgw. 

'ufton, *Sir Nicholas, 268, 367. 
'urkey Island, 28 ; Bend, 194, 209. 
'urkey, 461 ; Turks, 65, 461. 
'urner, Henry, 613 ; *William, 191, 192, 

213, 218. 
"usearoras, 112. 
'wine, John, 316. 
wisden, Sir Roger, 497; *Sir William, 

497. 
Vndall, or Tmdall, *Robert, 28, 29, 33, 

57, 60, 83, 93, 132, 146, 147 ; Thomas, 

617. 

.'ndall's charts of James River, of York 

River and along the bank of Vu^inia, 

30. 57, 58, 64, 93, 132; Point, 58; 

shoals, 420, 501, 514 

cita, daughter of an Indian king, 82. 

lloa, Julian Sanchez de, 276, 358. 

Ister, Ireland, 547. 

nited Provinces of Holland, 100. 

nited States of America, xv, 74, 99, 

652. 



Unknown persons, 344, 354, 429, 442, 

602. 
Upper Chippoak Creek, 468. 
Upper Hundred, 194. 
Usher, James, 619. 
Utie, John, 571, 580, 621. 
Utrecht, 269. 
tittamatomakin, 246, 247. 

"Vfelasco, Don *Alonso de, 124, 125, 141, 
144.^ 146-148, 160-163, 167, 173, 177, 
179; 181, 185-190, 196, 197, 218. 

Venice, gentleman of, 175, 189, 196. 

Vera Cruz, 1. 

Vere, *Sir Horatio, 386, 593. 

Vernam. Tliomas, 416. 

Vesey, William, 491. 

Viceroy of New Spain, 412. 

Victuals, 310, 581; see Provisions; Snp- 
plies ; etc. 

Vigo, John and Susan, 61.3. 

ViUa Flores, see Zuuiga. 

VUledieu, 108. 

*Villeroy, 199, 220. 

" ViUiaco," 47. 

Villiard, John, 617. 

VUIiers, *George, Duke of Buckingham, 
247, 368, 426, 434, 591, 595, 599. 

Vincent, WiUiam, 613, 619. 

Viner, or Vyner, Thomas, 369, 498, 5-38. 

Vines, grape, 133, 320, 374, 379, 417, 
458, 462, 465, 488, 503, 505, 562, r-' 
577; vignerons, 406, 422, 464, 46 
vineyards, 479 ; see Bonnell ; Wines. 

Virginia (34°-45° north latitude) un< 
the Crown, 1-71 ; His Majesty's Cou) 
for, 7-12, 14, 22, 25, 27, 28, 31, 33, 
43, 47, 48, 49, 52, 55, 68, 73, 83, 
120, 162, 166, 245, 252, 349,350; 
Second or Northern Colony and C 
pany, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15-17, 51, 52, 6; 
77, 84, 108, 135, 145, 148, 164, 176. 
192, 194, 197, 199, 200, 217, 239, 
349, 360-362, 365, 372, 375, 376 
387, 407, 408, 424, 425, 522, 631 
King's Council in, 15-17) ; the F 
Southern Colony and Company 
9-12, 18. 21-42, 50, 52-61, 64, 
86-99, 108-119, 127 ; the King's 
cil in the Colony, v, ix-xii, 24, 
33, 53-55, 58, 59, 61, 68, 70, 71 
93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 118, 119 ; see 
of 1606. For the Northern 
under their new charter see un 
England. 

Virginia (34°-40° north latitude' 
aged by The London Compi 
their special charters of 1609 
77, 117, 126-139, 140, 149- 
176, 189-195, 202-213, 218 
238-241, 253-255, 260, 272, 
289, 291-301, 305, 308-33? 
348, 349, 351, 352, 355, 35 
365, 368-583, 387-391, 394 
427, 431, 434, 435, 440, 44 



686 



INDEX 



450, 453-475, 478-482, 486, 488, 493 
499-516, 520, 522, 527, 532, 534, 549 
559-584, 591, 598, 605-632 ; the gov 
ernor's council in, 126, 131, 132, 139 
149, 150, 157, 166, 192; descriptions 
of, 34-37, 140, 152, 171, 205, 374, 418 
612 ; bay of, 152 ; see Commissions 
Courts ; Elections ; Government 
Lands ; Laws ; Managers ; etc. 

Virginia, the London Company of, x, xr 
xvii-xx, 05, 73-85, 100, 131, 199, 212 
213, 215, 220, 237, 250, 252, 259, 260 
349, 361, 362, 365, 380, 388, 396, 403 
427, 448, 615, 631-633, 635, 636, 648 
651, 652; His Majesty's Council for 
80, 132, 134, 136, 139, 142, 144, 145 
147, 151, 154, 157, 160, 166, 199, 217. 
222, 279, 280, 287, 294, 311, 321, 337 
340. 342, 343, 347, 362, 365, 382, 392 
393; 422, 457, 458, 477, 479, 482, 491 
494, 527, 534, 535 ; committees of the 
Company, v, ix, x, 154, 160, 333, 428 ; 
duties of the officers, 301-305; see 
Adventurers ; Auditors ; Charters of 
the Company ; Courts of the Compa^ 
ny ; Elections of the Company ; Govern- 
ment under the Company; Managers, 
etc. 

Virginia (34°-40° north latitude), the 
charters of the company overthrown, 
the management of the colony is re- 
snraed by the Crown, 633-648; see 
Commission to aid the King ; Lords 
Commissioners for the allairs of Vir- 
ginia. 

rgiuia, gifts to, 349 ; see Rev. Thomas 
3argrave ; N. Ferrar, Sr. ; Mary Rob- 
ason ; T. Roe ; G. Ruggles ; School 
the East India), contributors to ; Un- 
aown persons ; and W. Whitehead, 
rginiola," see Bermudas. 
an, Christopher, 497. 
ges, 6, 18, 21, 33, etc. ; see Ships, 
iges, the three, for discovery and 
de, 379, 380, 417, 418. 
V, see Viner. 

Armigil, 9 ; *Sir WiUiam, 9, 52, 

isenacawh, 40. 
right, Thomas, 480. 
Sir Isaac, 598. 
*Captain Richard, 68-70, 87, 

?52 443. 
Ensign, 137; Waiiam, 368; see 

5", 427, 428, 449, 450, 455, 514, 

xm, *Sir Francis, 1, 6. 

m, 116. 

ptain John, 268, 288, 299, 310, 

, 315, 318, 365, 372, 628. 

eek, 288 ; Plantation, 314-317, 



Wariseoyacks, 225. 

Warner, Mr., 33, 48. 

Warow h Comaco, see Werocomoco. 

Warr, *Thomas, 9. 

Warrants, 248, 258, 263, 267, 395. _ 

Warraskoyacks (etc.), Indians, 225, 4't 
516. 

Warrasquoke, etc., 136, 288, 514, 5' 
580, 622. 

Warwick, Earl of, see Robert Rich. 

Warwick County (Va.), 313. 

Warwickshire (Eng.), 379. 

Washer, Ensign, 314. 

Washington, Alice, George, Henry, an 
John, 651. 

Washington, D. C, 338, 507. 508, 532. 

Waterhouse, *David, 273 ; *Edward, 469 
487 ; Francis, 629; Mr., 430 ; Thomas 
629. 

Waters, *Edward, 257, 473, 613, 62 
Mrs., 473 ; Robert, 116. 

Waterson, Master, 120. 

Watkins, David, 252 ; Henry, 571, 580 
John, 416. 

Watson, *William, 369, 590. 

Watts, *Sir John, 65 ; Thomas, 618. 

Wayne, Amyte, 613. 

Weanoke, see Weyonoke, etc., 319. 

Webb, Captain, 92, 173 ; Elizabeth, 413 
*Captain George, 131, 211, 229 , Mr 
498 ; *Thomas, 426 ; William, 333, 38' 
487. 

" Webbes and Prices designe," 158. 

Welby, *William, 167. 

Weld, *Sir Humphrey, 80, 113. 

Weldon, WilUam, 342, 629. 

Wells, William, 419. 

Wenman, *Sir Ferdinando, 128, 131, 38' 
393 ; his daughter, 382 ; Sir Franci 
393 ; *Sir Thomas and Sir Richari 
383. 

Wentworth, Henry, 452, 570, 593 ; Mi 
561 ; *Sir Thomas, 436. 

Weroscoick, 133 ; see Warrasquoake. 

Werowoeomoeo, 57, 58, 113. 

West, Lady Cicely De la Warr, 247, 28: 
291, 364, 368, 402, 452, 482, 491 ; *Ca] 
tain Francis, x, 69, 94, 95, 97, 108, 11 
113, lis, 124, 125, 211, 229, 230, 25 
310, 317, 324, 373, 392, 435, 444, 45' 
490, 508, 509, 665, 566, 570, 571, 57 
610, 613, 614, 616, 619, 639, 645-64' 
Francis, Jr., 647 ; Henry, Lord De 
Warr, 324, 369, 373. 452, 491, 494, 5. 
533 ; Jane, 383 ; 647 ; *Captain Jo) 
56, 473, 650 ; *Captain Nathaniel, 2! 
516 ; *Sir Thomas, Lord Governor a 
Captain-General of Virginia, 76, 77, 
85, 100, 102, 104-106, 120, 121, 1' 
126-132, 1.34-141, 150, 156, 159, 1( 
162, 170, 182, 183, 190, 202, 211, 2- 
247, 251, 257, 260, 263-265, 267, 'I 
277, 281-283, 285, 290, 293, 297, 3' 
315, 317, 324, 339, 344, 373, 382, 3! 
396, 447, 631 ; *Captain William, 13t 



INDEX 



West and Sherley Hundred, 194, 228,229, 
o73, 579, (319, ti21 ; see Sherley. 

Westham, 58. 

Western Islands, see Azores. 

West Indies, 0, 13, 17-19, 22, 24, 30, 52, 
59, 73, 85-87, 111, 149, 156, 162, 163, 
178, 204, 226, 256, 270, 284, 285, 289, 
292, 300, 311, 324, 325, 334, 339, 356, 
358, 370, 412, 416, 433, 440, 450, 464, 
469, 481, 5J12, 581, 592, 595, 600, 645. 

Westminster. 291, 395. 

Weston, Francis, 594, 617 ; *Garret, 594 ; 
Sir Richard (chancellor), 433, 526, 
538, 594, 600, 634, 64:5 ; Thomas, 354, 
368, 425, 474. 609. 

Westover, 324, 373, 579, 619. 

Weymouth, *Captain George, 8, 9, 44, 47, 
135. 

Weynman, see Wenman. 

Weynok, 322 ; see Great ; Tanks ; Wey- 
onoke. 

Wheat, William, 430. 

Wheatley, *Thomas, 333, 513, 535. 

Whitaker, *Rev. Alexander, 149, 151. 
155, 171, 186, 202, 209, 212, 228, 240', 
241, 247, 256, 260, 277, 418, 631 ; hi? 
sister, 277 ; Captain, 512 ; Jabez, 571, 
580, 646 ; Lieutenant, 454 ; Master, 
418 ; Rev. Dr. WiUiam, 228. 

Whitcombe, Mr., 369. 

White, George, 257 ; *Captain John, 1 ; 
*John (" the puritan " attorney), 496, 
523, 527, 528, 533, 561, 009; Rev. 
Thomas, 460, 462, 631 ; William, 629. 

Whitehall, 248, 296, 438, 535, 550. 

Whitehead, William, 497. 

Whitner, Francis, 336. 

Whitson, *John (alderman), 477. 

Whittinghain, Tliomas, 115. 

Wickham, Rev. William, 228, 256, 260, 
310, 317, 631. 

Widows, *Richard, 538. 

Widows for wives, 454. 

Wiffin, *David, 264, 273. 

WUeocks, Captain John, 420, 504, 571, 
.580 ; Michael, 614. 

Wilde. Robert, 131 ; see Weld. 

Wilkins, Giles, 413. 

William and Mary College, 213. 

William the Conqueror, 108. 

Williams, Henry, 421, 614 ; John (Lord 
Keeper), 259, 433, 447, 480, 526, 530, 
555 ; John (goldsmith), 274, 351 ; Law- 
rence, 498. 

Willoughby, Thomas, 614, 624, 

Wilmer, *Clement, 451 ; *George, 452. 

Wilson, *Thomas, 161 ; Thomas, 430. 

Wilton, Francis, 617. 

Wiltz (Eng.), 456. 

Winchester, 291. 

Wincop, John, 336 ; his patent, 336, 337, 
.341, 628. 

Windham, Hugh, 336. 

Winds, 21-23, 83, 86, 110, 116. 

Windsor, 597. 



Wine, 4,54, 458, 478, 47 

Wingfield, *Captain E 
24, 27, 30, 53, 55, .5^^ 
118; Richard and " 

Winne, see Wynne, 

Winslow, Edward, 

Winston, or Wyns' 
351, 355, 358, ? 
514; WiUiam. 

Winter, Thoma? 

Winter (1607- 
1610), 112, 1 

Win wood, *S\ 
219, 220, 2 ■ 

Winy ah Ba' 

Wiseman, 
288, 419 

Wissapon 

Withera! 

Wither? 
427, 
619. 

Witte 

Wivf 

Wo 
43^, 

" Wode.. 

Woller, or \v 
Waller. 

Wolstenholme, *Ile j, tai ; *Sir Joliu, 
221, 24-1, 259, 264, 2e>5, 268, 272, 275, 
276, 286, 301, 306, 3a9, 342-344, 355, 
427, 443, 444, 451, 46( j, 476, 513, 634 ; 
Mr., 526. 

Wolstenholme's town in Virginia, 460. 

Wood, Ambrose, 423, 451 ; Captain, 92 ; 
John, 412; Philip, 444; *Thomas, 420, 
423, 459. 

WoodaU, *Dr. John, 137, 219, 512, 554, 
590. 

Woodcott, Jamep,, 430. 

Woodliffe, *Cavtain John, 345, 371-374, 
409, 413, 619. 

Woolwich, 84. 

Worcester, jcCarl of, see Edward Somerset. 

Worsley, *'Sir Bowyer, 629 ; *Sir Richard, 
401, 410, 629. 

Worthcim, James, 480. 

Wotton, Thomas, 28. 

Wow mchapuncka, 26. 

Wriothesley, *Henty, Earl of Southamp- 
ton, 6, 45, 65, 104, 115, 125, 135, 161, 
216, 244, 267, 294, 3-34, .340, 343, 349, 
359, 367, 369, 382, 383, 386, 387, 389- 
391, 393, 405, 406, 412, 420, 4.30, 435, 
439, 440, 442, 452, 454, 455, 457, 476, 
477, 497, 515, 517, 522, .526, 530, 531, 
535, 550, 566, 587, 593, 594, 596, 604, 
610 ; his an-est, 435 ; his confinement 
to his house, 530, 531, 550, 593; his 
administration, 382-632 ; see Sir Ed- 
win Sandys ; Southampton Hundred ; 
etc. 

Writters, John, 619. 

Wrolfe, Thomas, 247 ; see Rolfe. 



INDEX 



reO, 364, 382, 385, 396, 
'>5, 481, 493, 494, 514, 

^ . 268, 333, 335, 339, 
385, 427, 454 ; *Sir 
28, 554, 557, 590. 

6 Weynoke, etc. 

1, 293, 317, 390, 

7, 450, 453-475, 

597, 600, 605- 

47 ; his father 

rfiawte, 426, 
1, 500, 513, 



0. 

9; *Capt. 



-*i^all), 



421 ; *Captam, afterwards Sir Geoi^e, 
xii, 127, 131, 136, 210, 228, 280, 238- 
241, 251, 253, 254, 259, 266, 272, 280, 
284, 286-288, 290. 292-294, 296, 297, 
305, 308-332, 334, 339, 345, 347, 354, 
362-364, 370-381, 392, 393, 407-421, 
441, 452-456, 461, 463-466, 469, 472- 
475, 478, 480-482, 498, 504, 505, 564, 
565, 570, 571, 579, 580, 591, 609, 610, 
614, 616, 619, 621, 625-627, 629, 639, 
640, 642, 643, 645-048; Lady Temper- 
ance, 281, 286, 294, 295, 370, 614. 

Yelverton, H., 350. 

Yoa, the village of, 111. 

York (Eng.), 405. 

York River, Virginia, 40, 57, 203. 

Zealand, 600. 

Zouch, *Sir Edward, .346, 348, 375 ; *Ed- 
ward, Lord, 263, 267, 268, 297, 298, 
361 ; «Sir John, 3 ; *John, 533, 536, 
630. 

ZuTiiga, F. de S. Y., 88, 89, 91. 

Zufliga, *Don Pedro de, 3, 13. 15, 16, 19. 
20, 45, 48, 50-52, 62-65, 76, 79-81, 105, 
120, 121, 123, 170, 177, 179-182. 



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